Markets & Policy

A booming overseas market has offset falls in demand in China caused by rising solar module prices, according to Flat Glass. In common with its PV glassmaking rivals, the company is pressing ahead with production expansion, betting reduced prices for its products will feed even greater demand.

The Al Husainiyah solar plant, 200km south of Jordanian capital Amman, began commercial operations a week ago with more than 200,000 panels manufactured by 30% joint owner Philadelphia Solar.

Higher gas and electricity prices could open up new opportunities for short-term power purchase agreements in the Italian and European renewable energy markets, according to Stefano Cavriani, the founder and director of EGO Energy, an Italian company that specializes in PPA hedging. In a chat with pv magazine, he explained that electricity prices should not increase more, but they may stabilize at current levels, or slightly below the €100/MWh threshold.

India’s solar capacity growth up to 2030 also means the accumulation of a significant amount of PV module waste due to early failures or damage during transportation, installation, and operation. The waste generation could be 21 kilotons, assuming India’s cumulative installed PV capacity grows to 287.4 GW by 2030, from 40 GW in 2020. This doesn’t include end-of-life panel waste, as PV systems installed in the 2020-30 period are assumed to have at least 30 years of lifetime.

FRV, Harmony Energy, and Tesla are building a 99 MW/198 MWh facility in Essex. The system will rely on the Megapack solution from the U.S. manufacturer.

Arctech Solar has announced it will provide trackers for a 2.1 GW project in Dubai and China’s largest state-owned grid operators and power utilities – State Grid of China and China Southern Grid – have established a clean power exchange.

Elsewhere, Uniper and the Port of Rotterdam have signed a deal to produce green hydrogen at the former’s site on the Maasvlakte extension of the port, and the Japanese government is helping Azerbaijan develop a green hydrogen and ammonia market.

A group of biologists in the United States working with a bacteria discovered a mechanism that could be used to convert electricity into biofuels or other useful substances. With better understanding of the genetics, the group says the mechanism could rival hydrogen for the storage of renewable energy.

GPH Ispat will build a solar plant on an artificial lake that is used to harvest rainwater, with panels to also be deployed on lakeside hills and the rooftops of the company’s main factory and offices.

India will need large swaths of land for the expansion of renewables capacity over the decades ahead. The energy transition requires planning for proper siting of plants and solutions such as agrivoltaics, distributed energy systems, and offshore wind farms to reduce land-use conflicts.