Employment

RECC survey respondents say they will face major job cuts if solar tariffs are phased out in April, as proposed by the UK government. Reportedly more than 75% of jobs in the UK’s solar sector could be lost. A previous cut in tariffs prompted the loss of 9,000 jobs. Last week the industry sent an open letter to the energy minister opposing the policy.

Adding energy-intensive industries to microgrids can help refinance system costs and can lower tariffs for residential consumers, a study suggests. To achieve this though, accurate system design and sizing are essential.

German developer settled on Ha Tinh province after two years assessing several regions of the southeast Asian nation, and stressed the decision was in large part due to the welcome offered international investors.

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.

Green Energy Markets’ latest analysis shows the National Electricity Market is on track to get 33% renewable electricity by 2020, with individual states performing well beyond that. But the report claims solar jobs will be lost unless the National Energy Guarantee’s 26% emissions reduction target is lifted.

Andreas Liebheit, President of Heraeus Photovoltaics, has stepped down for personal reasons. He has been temporarily replaced by Raymund Chua, Head of HPT in Singapore and Head of Heraeus’ Asia-Pacific Regional Center.

The extent of the rapid growth under way in the Australian PV market has been laid out in the latest report by the Australian Photovoltaic Institute. Pointing to 2018 representing “another record year for Australian PV” the outstanding growth of the utility scale segment is a particular highlight – with 1.1 GW commissioned and 1.9 GW under development.

REC Silicon ASA has announced that it will today lay off around 100 employees from its workforce based in Washington, the U.S., and reduce production, as a “direct result” of the trade dispute between the U.S. and China.

The solar superpower’s departure from its ambitious PV targets has shaken the industry and put a dampener on share prices. Analysts from U.S. investment bank Roth Capital expect a module oversupply mountain of more than 30 GW as a result of the policy change.

LG’s 56 MW PV park is the group’s largest in Japan and will join the string of energy schemes feeding big data into the conglomerate’s Energy Optimization Center, when it opens this year.