Markets

The world’s biggest solar market is on track for an unsubsidized future but policymakers continue to grapple with grid planning. A report by the German Energy Agency has offered suggestions on how China’s approach to grid design could be tweaked to ensure priority dispatch for PV while slashing administrative costs and reining in renewable energy losses.

The German PV company had reached commercial operation of the first batch of its project at the huge Egyptian solar park in February 2018. Participants in the 1.8 GW solar park receive tariffs set in the nation’s second FIT tender round.

This year’s New Energy Outlook report by Bloomberg New Energy Finance predicts renewables can keep us on track for less than two degrees of global heating for the next decade. But after that, other technologies will have to do their bit.

Scottish consultancy Wood Mackenzie has raised its 2019 forecast with Florida and Texas starting to deliver on their potential as the U.S. solar market returns to growth.

More than a quarter of global electricity is generated from renewables, with solar the third largest source according to an annual overview drafted by global policy network REN21. Despite a year-on-year fall, solar accounted for the majority of generation capacity additions last year. But a lack of decarbonization policies across the heating, cooling and transport sectors puts a patchy energy transition in prospect.

The glass maker is set to issue fewer shares – at a higher value – in its solar glass subsidiary as it aims to generate funds for two new PV glass production lines in China.

More than 1.3 GWp of floating solar capacity has already been built throughout the world, according to a new report, with the Solar Energy Research Institute of Singapore reaffirming its belief that the global potential for floating PV is in the terawatt range.

Reports about a leaked document suggest that Germany, Italy, Greece and Slovakia have joined a group of EU member states that support a carbon neutrality bill. Germany refused to support such plans in March, but with political support for the German Green Party skyrocketing, Chancellor Angela Merkel is likely to revise her government’s position. With Germany now on the ticket, a plan could be finalized at some point this year.

The two documents urge member countries to adopt more favorable legislative frameworks to help improve operation of renewables and distributed generation in relation to other energy networks of gas or heat. The new provisions are also expected to facilitate the development of energy communities and aggregators, while opening the market for flexibility services to small power producers.

Overall, 64 companies have expressed interest in building the next 900 MW phase of the huge Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park. The first section of this part of the park is scheduled for completion in the second quarter of 2021.