Policy

Despite its abundant solar resources, Turkey’s potential for solar energy development remains largely untapped. Although the market grew considerably between 2017 and 2018, the outlook for the next two years, due to the macroeconomic situation and the current regulatory framework, appears rather gloomy. If regulations will not be changed, and tenders for large-scale solar remain unimproved, unsubsidized PV and self-consumption may remain the best options available to seek more growth.

The new budget looks to lower the cost of energy for households by turning to distributed energy, energy efficiency and community energy programs. To this end, several billion Canadian dollars will be spent.

Giving an update on the country’s renewable energy future, Malaysian Environment Minister Yeo Bee Yin said that the government is looking into P2P energy trading schemes and virtual net metering to expand solar uptake. On the residential side, a recent government-led communications push has lifted installation numbers over the last few months.

Chinese module manufacturing giant JinkoSolar today published its financial results for the full year 2018. While the company achieved an impressive 16% growth in shipments over the previous year, its total revenue took a 5.4% hit compared to 2017, thanks to falling module prices throughout the year.

The Victorian government is giving smaller solar installers eight months to sign up to the Clean Energy Council’s Solar Retailer Code of Conduct if they want to qualify for the Solar Homes program. For larger retailers, the deadline to become Approved Solar Retailers is July.

Under its Connecting Europe Facility (CEF), the bloc has opened another call for applications to build cross-border energy infrastructure projects. It has already agreed to provide a grant of €323 million to synchronize the regional grid in the Baltic States.

Automaker Volkswagen and Swedish lithium-ion battery producer Northvolt have announced plans to jointly form and lead a new organization, the European Battery Union (EBU), to conduct research on batteries used in transport and stationary energy storage applications.

The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) and the Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI) have agreed to collaborate on the promotion of renewable energy sources such as solar.

Toyota Australia will transform its former manufacturing site in West Melbourne into a renewable energy hub to produce green hydrogen with the help of funding from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA). In other hydrogen-related news, researchers at UNSW Sydney with partners H2Store have received a $3.5 million investment from Providence Asset Group to develop a hydrogen residential storage.

Indian company Amtronics CC has paid Quantum Materials Corp an initial $500,000 as part of an agreement securing the right to manufacture quantum dots and thin-film quantum dot solar cells based on QMC technology for commercial supply in India. Construction has already started on a manufacturing facility in the state of Assam.