Bangladesh prepares to tender solar rooftops on public buildings
The government will reportedly be ready to tender contracts to install rooftop PV on its buildings across eight divisions of the nation in as little as three months’ time.
Panasonic and Toyota launch EV battery business as solar lifts Kyocera and LG
Electronics corporations Panasonic, Kyocera and LG have filed results for the nine months to December 31. All three reported uplifts because of their solar activity and LG has said it will dive deeper into energy storage. Panasonic is deepening its commitment to automotive batteries through a new joint venture with Toyota.
India concludes world’s largest renewables-plus-storage tender at $0.0566595/kWh
Pumped hydro and battery projects, coupled with renewables, offer the world’s lowest peak clean electricity tariff. The tender, which received bids for for 1.62 GW of capacity against the 1.2 GW sought, saw Greenko secure 900 MW of pumped storage capacity and Renew Power 300 MW of battery storage.
German coal mines could host 3 GW of floating PV
Research institute the Fraunhofer ISE has estimated the technical potential of floating PV at mining sites in Germany at around 56 GW. With floating projects 10-15% more costly than land-based alternatives, researchers have called for further incentives, such as the staging of ‘innovation tenders’.
Main shareholder of Chinese module maker ET Solar files for bankruptcy
The move, by Taitong Industry Ltd, will come as a fresh blow to the Chinese module manufacturer, which twice failed to go public – in the U.S. and China – and whose project development business suffered a battering in China when Beijing reined in subsidies in 2018.
A mathematical method for choosing the best PV technology in hot, dry areas
The proposed model is said to perform better at energy prediction than software tools such as PVWatts, PVSyst or RetScreen. The approach was validated on two 5 MW PV plants in the same district of the Indian state of Rajasthan.
A record-breaking quarter for Tesla energy storage and an improvement in solar
The internet’s favorite energy company installed 530 megawatt-hours of battery storage in Q4, beating out the previous record, set last quarter, as well as showing continued improvement in solar installations.
Corporations inked 19.5 GW of clean energy contracts in 2019
Corporations contracted a record amount of wind and solar energy through power purchase agreements in 2019, up more than 40% from the previous year’s record, says a new report from BloombergNEF. The bulk of this purchasing occurred in the U.S. with tech companies and oil and gas majors leading the charge.
Panda Green settles $350m notes with hours to spare
The debt-saddled developer now has to hope its latest, $230 million state bail-out goes ahead before summer or it will be left $260 million in hock to its Beijing-owned main shareholder.
Scatec Solar swung from profit to loss last year
The Norwegian solar developer has gone from a $15.5 million profit at the end of 2018 to a $4.33 million loss just as its project co-financiers banked $21.5 million.
