Utility Scale PV

Large solar parks awarded contracts under Germany’s tender scheme could lose funding if not brought online on time. The nation’s solar trade body believes the government should quadruple its annual PV deployment target despite an anticipated coronavirus-related hiatus in roll-out.

Spanish utility Iberdrola plans to link a 100 MW/20 MWh solar-plus-storage plant to hydrogen production in Puertollano, in southern Spain. The project will require an investment of up to €150 million euros and will be one of the largest installations of its kind in Europe.

The utility will build the project this year on 164 hectares of land just outside of Berlin. It will be the largest solar park to be constructed outside of Germany’s incentive scheme for solar and renewables.

Market intelligence firm BloombergNEF has published a report with power company Statkraft and clean energy distributor Eaton highlighting the importance of sector coupling for Europe’s decarbonization plans. Analysts examined the power markets of Germany and the U.K. and concluded effective sector coupling including the use of green hydrogen could lead to greenhouse gas emission reductions of 83% by 2050.

The planned disposal of more than a third of the Chinese solar company’s project portfolio would take a significant chunk out of its debt mountain but trading in company stock was halted this morning, pending an announcement in relation to the project sale. Shunfeng sold off German PV project monitoring business meteocontrol to another operation owned by its main shareholder at the end of last year.

Chinese PV heavyweight Canadian Solar has announced an offtake deal for its Gunnedah solar project with e-commerce giant Amazon in the Australian state of New South Wales. The e-commerce giant also plans to build a 50 MW solar plant near Zaragoza, in eastern Spain.

Liander will apply a grid congestion management system in the Gelderland province from the autumn. The measure is intended to reduce the number of solar and wind power projects waiting on new grid capacity.

The utility-scale PV project, which Belectric built for Fortum Solar India across five sites, is the largest amount of solar capacity that the German EPC services provider has commissioned in the country thus far.

United Renewable Energy has signed a memorandum of understanding to supply project developer Ye Heng Power with 120 MW of its solar panels. It plans to start shipping the PV modules in the second half.

Charlotte has become the first U.S. municipality to come to terms with Duke Energy on a solar contract through the new Green Source Advantage program.