Markets

Tesla finishes 2019 on a high note amid a flurry of year-end EV funding, news and optimism on longer-range electrics.

Intersolar Europe is always a key date in the solar calendar but this year’s show had it all, including three panel-smuggling arrests. Elsewhere, wafers were getting bigger, efficiency records were tumbling and new technologies were emerging. There was also more news on the solar car ports fad and Hanwha’s ongoing legal tussle.

Finnish lender Nordea has called in a NOK150 million indemnity loan thought to have been taken out by REC Silicon ASA as a result of the bankruptcy of its Norwegian wafer manufacturing arm seven years ago.

A monastic community on the Mt Athos peninsula this year installed a solar-storage-diesel mini-grid which is set to be augmented by a biomass combined heat and power system in March.

The first part of pv magazine’s review of 2019 considers Q1, when solar early adopter Italy offered an optimistic start to the year by fleshing out its plans for PV but uncertainty still clouded the world’s biggest solar market. The potential for household solar installations to rocket the world over – helped by ever cheaper panels – prompted strategic decisions in the inverter market and analyst expectations were confounded as the cobalt and lithium price plummeted, bringing the EV revolution a big step nearer.

The Tunisian Ministry of Mines and Energy has confirmed that Norway’s Scatec Solar has secured 300 MW at three sites. It also revealed that France’s Engie and China’s TBEA each picked up 100 MW projects. The lowest bid came in at $0.025/kWh, while $0.034/kWh was the highest offer.

Greece’s energy regulator has announced the results of the country’s latest round of tenders for renewable energy, which saw the incumbent utility offer the country’s lowest bid for a solar PV project.

Evergen, a solar and battery optimization specialist, and battery supplier Solar Service Group have joined forces to connect thousands of residential batteries across Australia. By delivering significant benefits to consumers, the joint venture hopes to boost the uptake of home batteries across the nation.

CNBC has uncovered a recently granted building permit that allows Tesla to put up “two canopy covers” over its new “solar test houses.” Earlier this year, Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced that 2019 was “the year of the solar roof.”

Oman Power and Water Procurement Co. has named eight of the nine bidders vying to develop twin 500-600 MW solar plants in the sultanate, but the energy off-taker has sown doubt by claiming that the contracts will be awarded to private sector entities.