Utility Scale PV

As the debate heats up before Friday’s meeting between federal, state, territory and local government energy ministers in Australia, the Victoria authority has issued a last-minute call to redraft the proposed National Energy Guarantee, and the Australian Capital Territory has redefined its NEG approval condition with regard to the emissions target. Meanwhile, Australia’s energy bodies have taken separate paths.

Although the volume has not been disclosed, selected projects in this new auction will have to start delivering power by January 2022. In the first auction of this kind, held in June, the Brazilian power provider contracted 431.4 MW of wind and solar power.

The planned fourth round of the RenovAr program will probably not be held this year or next. The Argentinian government says grid constraints and difficult financing conditions may increase the auction’s prices.

As pv magazine has learnt, the Saudi energy giant lowered its offer to $0.02752/kWh at the last minute, beating the bid lodged by Spain’s Fotowatio, which offered $0.02791 per kWh.

The Minister for New and Renewable Energy has waved aside complaints about safeguarding duties by telling India’s upper house the nation’s ambitious four-year solar target is ‘comfortably’ within reach.

The solar system may be only 0.5 MW in scale but will help the supply of freshwater to 250,000 people within 18 months and further desalination-linked schemes are in the pipeline.

The lowest bid was submitted by Spanish developer Fotowatio, which offered US$0.02791 per kWh. Slightly higher, at $0.02799 per kWh, was the offer of Saudi power company, ACWA.

The $45 million loan was granted by French financial services provider, Natixis. The solar facility, selected by the Mexican governmemt in the first energy auction of 2016, will be located in the state of Aguascalientes.

Construction on the 100 MW Kristal Solar Park is set to start in October. The facility will be located near the town of Lommel, in the Flemish province of Limburg. The project developer, local investment agency, Limburgse investeringsmaatschappij (LRM) said the project will be 34% cheaper than expected.

In the fourth of six tenders totaling 4 GW planned for the utility-scale segment, the French government selected 103 solar projects. In the next two, and final, rounds, around 1.7 GW of additional solar capacity will be assigned.