Policy

Taiwan-based TrendForce says the nation added only 410 MW of solar capacity to the end of May, towards this year’s 2.2 GW target. The lower-than-expected deployment volume may be further hampered by new restrictions for PV on agricultural land introduced by the Council of Agriculture this month.

The price tariff agreed by German company ABO Wind for a 10 MW solar project in Igoumenitsa came in a tender which allocated only 142 MW of generation capacity, well short of the hoped-for 482 MW. It is hoped a slimline licensing process, to be applied in the next procurement round, will address the problem.

Canadian non-profit Plug’n Drive has looked at Ontario’s time-of-use electricity rates and found electric vehicle owners could generate substantial income by charging at night and selling to businesses during the daytime. Doing so could mean EVs have a lower net cost than conventional vehicles.

Industry body welcomes guidelines, which it says are crucial to realizing the potential of the nation’s hydrogen economy.

Plus, even stay-at-home orders and plunging commercial energy demand failed to take the sting out of Australia’s solar duck curve and China’s GCL System counts the first-half cost of the public health crisis.

Parliament has adopted Draft Law 3658 which can now be signed into law by the president. Payment reductions for solar have been further eased and curtailment will now be compensated but talk of extending the duration of the newly-reset FIT levels appears to have fallen by the wayside.

Ukrainian renewable energy lawyer Svitlana Teush takes a look at the law which will define the cuts to be applied in Ukraine after extensive negotiation between government and the clean energy industry.

The government’s Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy has drafted secondary legislation aimed at easing the construction of large scale energy storage projects for renewables. Around 100 such batteries could be deployed thanks to the proposed rules, according to the department.

The Brazilian government has u-turned over solar equipment import duty by introducing a measure to remove the 12% levy for 101 types of module plus some inverters and trackers. President Jair Bolsonaro had vetoed a similar proposal by the Senate and House of Representatives in November, stating it would be too costly.

The extraordinary measure of not publishing the results of successful project bids – brought in during the Covid-19 crisis – is set to be lifted from September, when the projects allocated in procurement rounds over the last five months will be made public.