Policy

The winners in the Baltic nation’s first clean energy auction will be announced by June 20. With the exercise rated according to the expected output of the facilities allocated, the government has committed to procure 5 GW worth of facilities, from a total 16.3 GW offered by bidders.

Franc Raffalli, president of the Photovoltaic Professions Group of the French Building Federation spoke to pv magazine about the impact of the coronavirus on the French PV industry.

The airline industry has been among the hardest hit by the Covid-19 pandemic; carriers are in ‘freefall’ as Glen Peters, research director at the Center for International Climate and Environment Research in Oslo recently wrote, with governments mulling stimulus packages for airline bailouts. How we react to the coronavirus outbreak is crucial for society as a whole and the solar and energy storage industries can lead the charge in rewriting the status quo.

The federal government’s ‘economic response to the coronavirus’ legislation encompasses the installation of commercial and industrial solar.

Tesla’s Nevada operation is still open for business, though. The EV and battery maker has assured the market its cash position is strong enough to weather an “extended period of uncertainty”.

The bailed-out Hong Kong-listed PV developer has warned its remaining independent shareholders of a thumping net loss for 2019 as it prepares to reveal its final results at the end of the month.

Netherlands trade body Holland Solar has asked the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy for an extension of grid-connection deadlines for solar projects being built under the SDE+ incentive program for large scale renewables. The association also urged Dutch municipalities to keep processing permits.

The International Renewable Energy Agency has devised a valuation framework to lay the foundations for successful storage deployment. As the technology matures and moves toward a projected fall in price, revenue stacking will be crucial to assess viability and properly value its benefits.

Large solar parks awarded contracts under Germany’s tender scheme could lose funding if not brought online on time. The nation’s solar trade body believes the government should quadruple its annual PV deployment target despite an anticipated coronavirus-related hiatus in roll-out.

A fund backed by the United Nations and the government of Luxembourg is helping companies to provide small solar PV systems and innovative cooking stoves in the economically challenged West African nation.