Financial incentive needed to drive UK energy storage
The lack of an incentive regime for battery projects and the like – whether a fixed feed-in tariff or market-driven contracts-for-difference program – is likely to see the COP26 host miss its 100%-clean-power-by-2035 commitment, according to K2 Management.
GCL-Poly says staff at state company gave misleading responses to investigation into problematic pre-payment
“Junior” figures at state-owned Sinomec Refinery & Chemical Corp told investigators from then-GCL auditor Deloitte that most of an advance payment made for a granular silicon plant had been passed on, in a bid to dissuade GCL from halting the EPC contract, the solar manufacturer said on Friday.
Shunfeng misses deadline to settle 2016 corporate bond
The company is planning another sell-off of solar projects, with two solar farms with a total generation capacity of 93 MW earmarked for divestment to state-owned China National Nuclear Power – provided the sites can come up with their rent arrears.
Lebanon discourages used PV panel imports
Amid reports of panels that should be destined for recycling instead being sold off in the Middle East and Africa, and the potential to bulk out products with non-functioning solar cells, a Beirut-based body has advised the government to shut down second-hand imports.
Midsummer begins construction on 50 MW factory in Italy
The factory will be built with the financial support of the Italian government. It will mostly serve southern European markets.
Green loan for 70 MW-plus rooftop solar program in Singapore
The city state is aiming to install panels on more than 1,200 public housing blocks of flats under the fourth phase of its national rooftop solar initiative.
Poly and wafer price rises helped GCL with debt pile, seven-months-overdue figures indicate
The polysilicon manufacturer and solar project developer has finally managed to publish the annual figures for 2020 and appears to be placing a lot of faith in its less-energy-intensive granular silicon product. In the meantime, though, another debt repayment deadline is looming within a fortnight.
Faster permitting crucial to help Italy add 70 GW of renewables this decade
In a chat with pv magazine at the Key Energy event in Rimini, Roberta Valenziani, of Italian trade body Elettricità Futura, explained the factors preventing Italy’s PV market from having a renaissance. She said the country has Europe’s longest delays and highest costs for obtaining permits for large scale solar.
Solar job numbers kept on rising in 2020
The latest edition of a clean power jobs survey produced by IRENA and the International Labour Organization has stressed the important role which will need to be played by the public sector if the energy transition’s employment benefits are to be shared equally.
‘Italy can be a laboratory for agrivoltaics’
Efforts are being made to come up with a less convoluted approach to planning farm-based solar systems, in the only EU member state which explicitly apportioned funds for agrivoltaics in its post-Covid spending plans.
