Markets

While China is resetting its policy framework, other regions are gaining more importance on the global PV market. The Intersolar Europe conference in Munich focused on Europe and the Middle East as growth drivers.

The U.S.-based company, which is now supplying solar trackers for more than 400 MW of contracted projects in the U.K., Spain and Greece, will bolster its sales presence in Europe, where it anticipates a “solar renaissance.”

Welcome to Day 1 of Intersolar Europe 2019! Follow pv magazine live to keep updated on the latest solar PV and storage developments, events and trends from this year’s event, as they happen. Today’s highlights include the launch of our new sustainability campaign, UP; the unveiling of the newest addition to the pv magazine family, pv magazine France; moderation of the launch of both Longi’s and JinkoSolar’s latest modules; and the Intersolar award finalists. Stay tuned!

Tests by U.S.-based PV Evolution Labs (PVEL) show that monocrystalline silicon and polycrystalline silicon PV modules produced by India’s Vikram Solar met and exceeded international quality and performance benchmarks.

Solar-plus-storage could be competitive against gas peaking power plants in Australia within the next five years, as the average solar-plus-storage LCOE across the Asia-Pacific region is set to fall from $133/MWh this year to $101/MWh by 2023, according to a newly released research report.

The European solar trade body expects 128 GW of new PV capacity in 2019, with China likely to bring around 43 GW online and Europe experiencing enough demand to deploy about 20.4 GW. In 2020, global solar demand is expected to reach 144 GW, while in the following three years new PV additions are forecast to total 158 GW, 169 GW and 180 GW, respectively.

Moixa has wrapped up an £8.6 million funding round led by Honda. The U.K. smart battery specialist will use the funds to finance the global expansion of its business managing residential battery systems, electric vehicles and smart charging facilities, as well as the aggregation of battery capacity for grid services.

The Kingdom of Eswatini, formerly known as Swaziland, has began the procurement process for 40 MW of PV capacity. The projects, which will be assigned by 2020, will also include 40 MW of biomass. The new capacity will make the kingdom less dependent on power imports from South African utility Eskom, which currently faces a financial and operational crisis.

Norwegian-headquartered developer Scatec Solar has announced the start of commercial operations for the Jasin Solar Plant, the second of three 65 MW projects the company is working on in Malaysia as part of a consortium led by engineering firm ITRAMAS.