Markets

pv magazine rounds up the latest Covid-19-related stories likely to affect the world of solar and energy storage.

Austrian power provider Verbund has shut down its coal-fired district heating plant in the state of Styria as planned. This means that coal power generation in Austria is now history, paving the way for a switch to a 100% renewable power supply by 2030. However, Photovoltaic Austria emphasizes that Austria needs a well-considered plan for clean energy, as a quarter of the nation’s electricity is still generated from fossil fuels.

The Chinese solar manufacturer has finally addressed lingering uncertainty about its future with the release of the audited version of its 2019 financial results.

According to a recent survey by EuPD Research, political conditions are to blame for the expected slowdown, rather than the coronavirus pandemic. The potential failure to remove the 52 GW cap for solar incentives is expected to have a much stronger impact on potential investors.

The Covid-19 pandemic will create a “perfect storm” for Australia’s wholesale electricity market, as lower demand comes together with lower gas prices and the commissioning of large-scale solar and wind projects to depress power prices, according to a report by Melbourne-based consultancy RepuTex.

The U.S. solar industry experienced a wave of job losses last month and the public health crisis has driven foreign exchange losses which will jeopardize projects Down Under, but it is Angela Merkel’s government which is attracting the ire of German PV installers.

A thinktank has studied whether increased solar energy would contribute significantly to reducing the carbon footprint of the French and European electricity systems in an attempt to respond to a common French refrain the nation needs no further decarbonization of energy because it has nuclear power.

The losers in a world which no longer runs on fossil fuels are obvious but the dividend from shrugging off hydrocarbon dependency will be spread around most of the world so it is the nations which are winning the cleantech manufacturing and intellectual property race which appear best positioned for the future.

Perhaps it is not surprising a report co-produced by Europe’s solar industry places PV at the heart of a zero-carbon, mid-century energy system on the continent. However, the study does flesh out two out of three scenarios in which becoming carbon-neutral by 2050, or even 2040, could be possible.

Researchers at Monash University in Australia have managed to develop a solar cell so ultralight and flexible that it could revolutionize the future of wearable tech.