Legal

Californian solar module manufacturer Solaria Corporation has asked the U.S. International Trade Commission to issue an exclusion order to prevent the sale in the United States of Canadian Solar shingled solar modules it claims infringe its patents.

Financial newspaper Les Echos claims the government is mulling a renegotiation of historic feed-in contracts after the Court of Auditors in 2018 ruled the incentives too generous.

The Sino-Canadian solar manufacturer has moved to settle a ten-year-old case in which it was accused of breaching generally accepted accounting principles in its 2009 figures. The company has indicated the settlement, which is yet to be approved, is not an indication of guilt.

The Japanese electronics giant said a partnership with GS-Solar will not materialize and it will continue producing its modules in Japan and Malaysia while seeking other cooperation opportunities.

Parliament has adopted Draft Law 3658 which can now be signed into law by the president. Payment reductions for solar have been further eased and curtailment will now be compensated but talk of extending the duration of the newly-reset FIT levels appears to have fallen by the wayside.

Ukrainian renewable energy lawyer Svitlana Teush takes a look at the law which will define the cuts to be applied in Ukraine after extensive negotiation between government and the clean energy industry.

The government’s Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy has drafted secondary legislation aimed at easing the construction of large scale energy storage projects for renewables. Around 100 such batteries could be deployed thanks to the proposed rules, according to the department.

The Brazilian government has u-turned over solar equipment import duty by introducing a measure to remove the 12% levy for 101 types of module plus some inverters and trackers. President Jair Bolsonaro had vetoed a similar proposal by the Senate and House of Representatives in November, stating it would be too costly.

The stunning findings of an investigation by the auditor into RMB1,022 million paid by Panda Green for the right to develop solar projects which never materialized included confirmation by the former chief finance officer documents were drawn up after the fact.

RES4Africa’s plan to offer a one-stop-shop to tap consolidate all the European sources of funding for African renewables aims to de-risk investments in large-scale renewable energy projects in the continent. The 171-page report entitled “Scaling Up Africa’s renewable power” provides an update on the “renewAfrica Initiative” launched by the RES4Africa foundation together with a range of European stakeholders one year ago.