French government considers cutting pre-2011 FITs
Financial newspaper Les Echos claims the government is mulling a renegotiation of historic feed-in contracts after the Court of Auditors in 2018 ruled the incentives too generous.
Chile connects first floating PV plant to grid under net billing scheme
Developer Solarity has completed the first floating PV array to be connected to the national distribution network under Chile’s net billing scheme. The plant will supply 100% of project owner Hortifrut’s energy needs, while allowing it to sell excess power to the grid.
Indian rooftop PV capacity nears 6 GW
Bridge to India figures show dominance of Chinese inverters, which supplied almost 80% of installs from July last year to the end of June.
Active cooling for PV modules in floating arrays
Saudi Arabian and Pakistani scientists have created a serpentine cooling block structure to improve the efficiency of PV panels in floating solar projects by around 1.5%. The cooling block can be filled via a low-cost, 15.6 W commercial 12 V DC water pump with cool water.
Photovoltaic shade for greenhouses
French start-up Solar Cloth has secured a patent for a PV shade screen for solar greenhouses.
Keeping PV panels honest
Michelle McCann and Lawrence McIntosh, the partners behind the PV Lab panel-testing facility in Canberra, see Australia’s solar installations as a vast, aggregated virtual power plant.
Covid-19 weekly round-up: Australian states target green recovery as France devotes €30bn to energy transition
Clean energy power plants will figure prominently as Queensland and Victoria bid to reset their economies for a post-coronavirus world. France suffered a hit to its new solar deployment figures in the first half of a Covid-hit year but its neighbor appears to have no such concerns.
UK Citizens’ Assembly speaks highly of solar – but is government listening?
Some 81% of the everyday folk asked how the U.K. should realize its net zero 2050 ambition said solar should be part of the mix and views were also aired on electric and hydrogen transport, home heating and how to incentivize companies to embrace a circular manufacturing model.
Sweden exempts from energy tax on self-consumption all PV systems of up to 500 kW
On the top of the new fiscal measure, the Swedish government has also announced that the rebate scheme for rooftop PV, which was originally scheduled to be closed this year, will be continued in 2021. It will only apply to municipalities and enterprises and with a limited budget of 260 million SEK ($29.6 million), however.
Rising number of grid-connection permits shows 2020 could be another record year for Polish solar
Data from the Instytut Energetyki Odnawialnej shows 1.3 GW of solar projects secured preliminary grid-connection permits in the first half, with around 600 MW securing final approval. Last year, preliminary approvals totaled around 2 GW and final awards 730 MW.
