Policy

The Sustainable Solar Europe conference kicked off this week with a focus on the European Commission’s draft regulation on eco-design. The regulation will likely be adopted in the second quarter of 2023.

As part of Aurora Solar’s Empower 2022 online solar summit, Bernadette Del Chiaro, from the California Solar & Storage Association, will moderate a talk about electric utilities and how they have abused their monopoly position to discriminate against solar in the US. Here, she gives pv magazine a taste of the presentation.

At present, only a few distributors offer net-metering services in Finland, meaning that only a small share of PV systems are net-metered. In 2023, all PV systems will be offered net metering through the country’s new centralized information exchange system for the retail electricity market.

With the last incumbent to enter and leave the revolving door of UK prime ministers having caused alarm by reportedly preparing plans to effectively ban big solar on farmland, Harald Överholm, CEO of clean energy company Alight, says politicians need to put discredited arguments behind them and get on with the urgent business of shoring up energy security.

Analysis from Aurora Energy Research shows around 4.3 GW of solar projects secured grid-connection permits to date in Portugal. Data also shows a record 1.2 GW of solar projects requested generation licenses in the first seven months of the year, smashing previous records.

The Portuguese government said in a new legal decree that it will adjust the prices, according to inflation, of winning bids from its record-breaking solar auctions in 2019 and 2020. It will also extend the period during which projects can sell electricity at spot market prices by 12 months.

South Korean industrial giant Hanwha launched its new Q Energy business over the summer, and is moving forward with an ambitious strategy of energy projects across the European continent. pv magazine caught up with Sang Chull Chung, CEO of Q Energy Group, for a look at its plans to accelerate deployment of renewables to alleviate Europe’s energy challenges.

Electricidade de Moçambique (EDM) will obtain $2.5 million from the African Development Bank (AfDB) to fund studies into floating solar and battery systems.

Record energy prices, particularly in Europe, are driving demand for renewables and energy storage. That is changing the equation for utility solar and wind investment and shortening project payback times to under a year in some regions. Storage deployment, driven by recent policy developments around the world, is also expected to get a big boost through to 2030.

The Solar Photovoltaic Industry Alliance is one of the European Union’s key strategy initiatives under the REPowerEU plan that was adopted in May 2022. The European Commission has now formally endorsed the initiative, which is expected to launch by the end of this year.