Policy

The coronavirus outbreak in China could raise solar module prices in the near term as manufacturers have already begun experiencing wafer and solar glass shortages. Production rates are also being affected by an extended new year holiday introduced by the authorities as a measure to deal with the virus, and the requirement workers from infected areas quarantine themselves for two weeks.

The government will reportedly be ready to tender contracts to install rooftop PV on its buildings across eight divisions of the nation in as little as three months’ time.

PV Cycle has said it collected more than 280,000 solar panels at the end of their lifecycle in France last year, including 200 tons from the nation’s overseas territories.

Pumped hydro and battery projects, coupled with renewables, offer the world’s lowest peak clean electricity tariff. The tender, which received bids for for 1.62 GW of capacity against the 1.2 GW sought, saw Greenko secure 900 MW of pumped storage capacity and Renew Power 300 MW of battery storage.

Research institute the Fraunhofer ISE has estimated the technical potential of floating PV at mining sites in Germany at around 56 GW. With floating projects 10-15% more costly than land-based alternatives, researchers have called for further incentives, such as the staging of ‘innovation tenders’.

The world’s largest utility has looked outside the energy industry for its new head for the first time in its history, apparently signalling a lack of patience in Beijing with the slow pace of implementing a lower electricity price and of guaranteeing purchase of all clean power generated in the nation.

The project is part of the 1 GW solar program developed by the government with the support of the Asian Development Bank. The solar park will be in the Surkhandarya province, in the far southeast of the country.

The move, by Taitong Industry Ltd, will come as a fresh blow to the Chinese module manufacturer, which twice failed to go public – in the U.S. and China – and whose project development business suffered a battering in China when Beijing reined in subsidies in 2018.

State-owned Energy Efficiency Services and New Delhi-based Bharat Heavy Electricals have agreed to set up public charging stations for electric vehicles on highways across India.

Under the umbrella of the European Union’s Horizon 2020 initiative, the research platform ERA has initiated a new batch of future energy projects. Looking at the list of winning projects, it is easy to tell that hydrogen, virtual power plant, and blockchain projects are really at the center of what Europe thinks will be important for its net-zero carbon plans by 2050.