Installations

Last year’s trend continued in the first 2019 round of PV tenders. The average final price was €0.0480/kWh. Almost all the selected projects will be on arable land in disadvantaged areas of Bavaria.

Some 377 households and a retirement home are participating in a pilot project. In the first two weeks of this month, solar power generators sold 82% of their electricity within the neighborhood. The goal of the one-year test run is to develop a viable concept for the local marketing of solar power.

Plans were broadly sketched out in the nation’s twelfth five-year plan, in 2008. Since then China’s Defense Science and Technology Bureau has supported key technology research. An initial, megawatt-scale project is planned in the stratosphere sometime in the 2021-2025 period.

With its investment, the energy company has broadened its portfolio of ways to help customers save on energy bills. There are multiple energy companies pursuing similar goals at the moment as distributed generation and storage solutions require utilities to find new business models; not the least to avoid grid expansion costs.

The solar event in Lyon illustrated how expectations of French solar remain big despite lower-than-expected development and issues related to regulations and carbon footprint requirements. The large participation of international and Chinese players seeking business among installers and distributors is a signal things may improve in the short term, and larger volumes may be deployed in the coming years.

The Solar Energy Corporation of India has invited bids for the development of an aggregate capacity of 20 MW of lagoon-based floating PV with 60 MWh of battery-based storage systems in the union territory of Lakshadweep.

The 246 MW Solar-Farm 1 is being developed by the nation’s largest energy holding and coal power producer, DTEK. The plant will be on the territory of a spent quarry.

The 23 MW/12.6 MWh facility is near Mafraq, in northern Jordan. The storage system will offer peak shaving to increase grid stability while enhancing solar output.

Electricité du Cambodge has launched an international tender to procure a solar project in Kampong Chhnang province, on a build-own-operate basis. The project is the initial phase of the 100 MW National Solar Park, which is being supported by the Asian Development Bank.

In the Infrastructure Outlook 2050 study, Gasunie and TenneT say ambitious EU climate targets can only be reached through deeper integration of the power and gas infrastructure, and with power-to-gas technologies supporting renewables. The most bullish scenario for solar states how storage and power-to-hydrogen capacity could be crucial to meet seasonality in supply and demand.