Markets & Policy

The Spanish Cabinet has approved a royal decree, which introduces a package of urgent measures to boost the country’s energy transition. It includes the already announced elimination of the “sun tax”, and other important measures, such as compliance with renewable energy objectives, electric vehicle adoption, reduced electricity prices, a social bonus for heating, consumer protection measures, and the extension of an electric social bond.

A new report by Wood Mackenzie finds a surprising amount of potential demand flexibility in U.S. homes, which can make the job of integrating more solar and wind easier.

After the impressive results seen a month ago in Jordan’s Round 3 PV and wind auction, the successful developers have still not been announced, despite the government initially saying it would take two weeks to award the bids.

The Global Solar Council (GSC) held its general assembly at last week’s Solar Power International (SPI) in California, where it announced new board members and said it will work towards crafting a unified message for the solar industry. All five working committees of the council are expected to contribute to this new task.

Responding to recent news reports that Saudi Arabia had abandoned its very ambitious plans to install 200 GW of solar PV by 2030, the country’s Ministry of Energy, Industry and Mineral Resources (MEIM) issued an official statement saying that the plans are still on track. It also outlined three components of a new power sector transformation plan.

EnergyTrend has released a report suggesting that Taiwan is on its track to meet the target of building 20 GW solar PV by 2025. While decreasing module prices makes it easier for investors and stakeholders to achieve this goal, Taiwan’s module manufacturers are struggling to compete with the price developments this year. Many companies in Taiwan will, therefore, turn their eyes to the downstream market, the report claims.

Three seperate tenders will be held for the deployment of large-scale solar plants across three locations, chosen by the Turkish Government. Selected developers will not be required to open a module factory, as in the last tender, but will have to buy at least 60% of the necessary modules from Turkish panel makers. The new maximum price has been set slightly lower than the final price of the previous 1 GW solar auction, held in 2017.

Looking at a scenario, in which the Spanish residential solar market is booming again, energy consultancy, ecoSynergies finds that the energy system could save billions, both in terms of CO2, and fuel and grid costs. Additionally, introducing the EU’s suggestion to fairly compensate prosumers for their surplus energy, would allow households to slash payback times for their solar systems by more than a half. In some cases, the amortization period could go down from 25 to seven years.

Lebanon’s International Beirut Energy Forum (IBEF) 2018, which took place last week in the country’s capital, saw the announcement of various solar tenders that depict the domestic PV sector’s take off.

Selected projects, which have a combined capacity of 338 MW, are scheduled to begin delivering power in January 2022 under a 20-year PPA.