Sustainability

Down below, you can see a quickfire summary of some of the events held and points raised on day one of pv magazine‘s Roundtables Europe event.

Despite worldwide net-zero pledges, a new EU sustainable debt taxonomy, an urgent need to address the climate crisis, and record sustainable debt investments, the world still has a long path to tread to meet its climate goals. Next week at pv magazine’s European Roundtables event and in the third quarter of our UP Initiative, we will focus on green finance. Specifically, what steps have been made in the past two years? Will sustainability-linked bonds gain traction? What supporting policies and standards are in place or required? And what can solar companies do to be ESG-ready?

The European Investment Bank says a new €10 million ($10.5 million) loan will offer electricity access to almost 650,000 people in Benin.

The Nigerian state of Lagos and the World Bank have announced plans for 1 GW of rooftop PV by 2030.

For centuries, cultures in Europe have marked their calendars to celebrate Midsummer and the Summer Solstice. Traditionally a time to enjoy bright evenings, and the light and hope of the sun, the Summer Solstice falls on June 21. On the longest day of sunlight in 2022, Europe has much to hope for. After difficult pandemic years, enduring cost of living and energy price hikes, and the on-going, unprovoked, Russian war on Ukraine, Midsummer gives us a small moment to reflect on, and hope for, brighter times ahead.

A couple of weeks ago, Goldman Sachs sent shockwaves through battery metals markets, issuing a prediction that cobalt and lithium in particular were due for a sharp price decline in the next two years. But London-based Benchmark Mineral Intelligence is loudly pushing back, outlining its reasons why it believes the call on lithium was wrong. Meanwhile, US analyst Wood Mackenzie says that the battery raw material chain will remain tight, but notes that recycling could help to ease the supply deficit.

Scientists in China have developed a new recycling process for PV modules that can recover intact silicon cells from end-of-life products, and process them back into wafers. As part of the recycling process, the wafers are purified and surface-treated, making them suitable for integration into new, high-efficiency cells and modules.

The importance of biodiversity on solar farms is coming into sharper focus, due to the intersecting forces of sustainable finance and the UK Environment Act. These positive influences will likely change the way the industry and the public view solar farms, as they evolve into biodiversity hotspots that lead the recovery of nature. Everoze Partner Ellie van der Heijden discusses how boosting biodiversity can be an opportunity for solar developers and investors to increase their positive impact.

A large campus in Johannesburg – Vantage Data Centers’ first in Africa – will receive a third of its energy from solar panels.

The project, planned at a council-owned commercial development, is expected to be connected to 2 MW of storage.