African Development Bank opens $50-60m pot for off-grid solar Covid recovery
The development lender has established a Covid-19 Off-Grid Recovery Platform with impact investors from the Netherlands, U.S. and U.K., to offer affordable loans to off-grid solar companies operating in Africa.
Offshore floating PV may reach maturity in 2030
According to a report from DNV GL, the North Sea may host around 100 MW of floating solar capacity by 2030, and 500 MW by 2035. The LCOE of offshore PV systems is currently estimated at around €354/MWh but in the future it should be close to that of ground-mounted solar parks.
Ecuador concludes 200 MW PV tender with final price of $0.06935/kWh
Solarpack was the winner of Ecuador’s latest tender, launched in July 2019, for the 200 MW El Aromo solar project. The facility will sell electricity to state-owned Corporación Eléctrica del Ecuador SA under a 20-year power purchase agreement.
First PPA-driven solar rooftop in Egypt
Solarizegypt will receive payments from Coca Cola for a 1 MW array it has installed on an industrial facility in Sadat City under the nation’s net metering regime.
The world has 53 million hectares of abandoned cropland suitable for PV deployment
Researchers in Norway have mapped all cropland areas that were abandoned between 1992 and 2015 and found that the vast majority is suitable for PV and bioenergy deployment. Around 30% is located in Asia, followed by the Americas, with a 28% share, and Africa, with a percentage of 22%. Europe and Oceania had shares of 20% and 5%, respectively.
Philippines to host 1 GW of solar under PPAs
Solar Philippines is planning to deploy several unsubsidized solar plants in the provinces of Batangas, Cavite, Nueva Ecija, and Tarlac.
Grace Solar links six strings per motor with Linkage Tracker System
The tracker maker claims its product reduces the need for motors.
The dash to glass
Hong Kong-listed solar company Irico New Energy is preparing to shunt its non solar glass business units into Chinese state-controlled parent Irico Group so it can treble its PV glass production capacity in 2024 with the help of a four-line, $108 million manufacturing facility.
The future of power electronics is distributed, aggregated and service oriented
IHS Markit released a white paper in which the analyst outfit shared some predictions for the power electronics market. First and foremost, inverters will become smarter, and after some power outages in key markets, these devices are gearing up to take on more grid stabilizing tasks, which hitherto had been reserved for synchronous generators.
Chinese PV Industry Brief: More glass capacity in Anhui Province
Deli Glass announced on Monday that it would invest RMB2 billion ($303 million) in a new PV glass production facility with a daily capacity of 2,000 MT. Furthermore, a plan to transfer around 2 TWh of renewable energy power from China’s eastern provinces to Tibet was announced.
