Policy

Crisil Ratings says rapid renewable energy additions and slow grid expansion could expose more than 35 GW of capacity to curtailment in India.

The Italian energy regulator is requiring PV and wind plants over 100 kW to install central controllers with remote active power control, with staggered compliance deadlines up to 2028. The rules, coupled with rising digitalization, are driving cybersecurity upgrades, AI-based monitoring, and grid-aware operational practices across the renewable energy sector.

Newly-implemented rules governing Ukraine’s energy market introduce solar-plus-storage systems as a separate auction category, ease regulatory barriers governing standalone storage projects and establish processes for renewable energy facilities located in Ukraine’s occupied territories.

Austrian researchers conducted a techno-economic analysis of agrivoltaic systems and found that 5%–16% of the country’s cropland would be required to meet its solar electricity targets.

An international research team developed CyberSentry, a software framework using advanced deep learning and optimization techniques to enhance cybersecurity in SCADA systems for power plants and critical infrastructure. It combines feature selection, hybrid anomaly detection, and dynamic parameter tuning to detect diverse cyberattacks with 99.5% accuracy while minimizing false alarms.

This week Women in Solar+ Europe gives voice to Sabina Blitek, General Counsel at Netherlands’ R.Power Renewables. She says women in male-dominated industries, like energy and finance, can overcome bias by consistently demonstrating competence, believing in their own potential, and leading by example.

The Bilaj Al Jazayer Independent Power Project will be developed under a public-private partnership on a build-own-operate basis.

U.S. researchers developed a framework showing that wider spacing between solar PV rows can make agrivoltaic systems economically viable for large-scale mechanized farming. Their simulations in Colorado demonstrated that optimized row spacing maintains crop production while improving combined agricultural and energy revenues.

A new global dataset of 119 energy-sector cyber incidents from 2022–2024 shows EU and BRICS countries, followed by the US, are most affected. Attacks targeted power, oil, gas, and nuclear infrastructure, driven by both financial and political motives, with diverse threat actors involved.

The Japanese government has defined new standards for agrivoltaics as regulators begin tightening oversight in response to nearly one-quarter of projects reporting reduced crop yields or sub-standard cultivation beneath solar panels.