Installations

The country’s solar net metering projects had been on hold for over a year, but a new pricing structure has made distributed solar an attractive investment once again.

The New York-based hedge fund keen on “commercially reasonable solution” to re-igniting PPAs for three solar projects, developed in Hawaii by SunEdison, which had their previous PPA contracts canceled by local utility.

The Guardian Australia reported overnight that the Australian Federal Government is considering a plan to merge the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) and the Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC). The reported plan to merge two leading renewable energy bodies has been slammed by the Australian Solar Council (ASC), which say that is “looks, feels and smells like a cost-cutting measure.”

More than 2.5 years after the initial announcement, the state-owned Belarusian oil company Belorusneft proceeds with its plan to build the largest PV farm in the country, with 55 MW of capacity.

The development of the project is being overseen by Natcore Technology along with Catalyst565, and will start adding a solar presence to a country with huge renewable energy ambitions.

Origin Energy has awarded an Early Contractor Involvement (ECI) contract to engineering and infrastructure company RCR Tomlinson Ltd for a 200 MW farm, however the project still needs to secure grant funding from ARENA and pass a final investment decision.

A total of at least 1GW of large-scale solar could be added to existing Australian wind farms, boosting renewable energy development, generation, and and smoothing its delivery to the grid, according to a new report from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency.

While residential battery deployment may be capturing headlines and heralding the march of prosumer, industrial applications deliver the demand required for manufacturing capacity growth. Leclanché’s VP and head of corporate development Jacques Boppe argued this was the case at Energy Storage Europe last week in Germany.

Last week ISRA Vision, which also trades as GP Solar, announced that it has inspected over 2.5 GW of PERC cells using its new CHROME+ inspection system. Eric Rüland, Managing Director of GP Solar, tells pv magazine that the new tool and technique can deliver better cell classification and reduce “overkill”.

As the transition to 1500-volt (V) inverters builds up steam, the Chinese PV-inverter manufacturer successfully connects its first 1500V PV project to the grid to improve its generating efficiency.