Finance

The European Investment Bank and Greece this week signed a first-of-its-kind agreement to jointly manage €5 billion of investment concerned with the EU member state’s post-Covid recovery plan. The strategy has a key focus on green energy.

Instead of splurging €11 billion of EU cash on uneconomic new generation capacity, the Italian authorities–and electricity bill payers–would be better served investing in a mix of current clean power technologies which would include almost 17 GW more solar capacity.

West Africa hogged more than twice as much investment as the east in a year which saw stock market backing plunge an ‘alarming’ 46%, leaving donor grant funding and debt to pick up the slack during a Covid-hit year, according to off-grid industry body GOGLA.

The speed at which manufacturers are introducing changes from one product generation to the next is accelerating – currently, formats are scarcely available for more than a few months before another revised product is launched. But occasionally new module dimensions also bring new problems, be it in handling, plant design, or logistics. Ever-shorter product cycles and hastily launched record-breaking modules with capacities of 500 W, 600 W, or even 700 W are not always welcomed with open arms – especially by those who have to work with them, writes Martin Schachinger of pvXchange.com.

Private sector businesses will be offered concessional loans to install solar and other climate change related equipment.

An ‘explosive’, ‘booming’ global solar market in the second half of a Covid-hit 2020 saw the previous glass manufacturing overcapacity reversed, as float and auto glass producers bent all their efforts on making material for PV modules.

The solar industry faced headwinds in March, writes Jesse Pichel of Roth Capital Partners, thanks to rising interest rates and, in California, concerns over increasing grid access fees. Despite this, the recent earnings season reveals strong fundamentals and a healthy outlook for most players.

With Cape Town-based solar crowdfunder The Sun Exchange having generated $1.4 million for a 510 kW solar-plus-storage facility for Zimbabwean food company Nhimbe Fresh, pv magazine has spoken to the heads of both businesses–Sun Exchange CEO and founder Abraham Cambridge and Nhimbe executive chairman Edwin Moyo–about the fundraising exercise. First up is The Sun Exchange founder…

Greater dispatchability will be required from solar as it becomes increasingly mainstream worldwide, or investors could experience diminishing returns as a victim of the technology’s success at bearing down on electricity prices.

The French energy company said the project will come into operation in 2022. It will sell power to the Saudi Power Procurement Company under a 25-year PPA.