Belgium’s Flanders region unveils compensation scheme for PV systems affected by smart meter disruption
The draft regulation has now been sent to the country’s Council of State for review. If approved, the new rules will grant prosumers the right to ask to postpone the installation of a smart meter until 2025. Furthermore, the Flemish government said it will also compensate PV system owners with a sum that should ensure a reasonable investment return of 5%.
Austria allocates 332 MW of PV under 2020 rebate scheme
The Austrian government had devoted €50 million to the scheme for last year. These funds will enable the deployment of 15,957 PV systems.
Global PV installations to surpass 150 GW in 2021
Despite pandemic-induced impacts, the PV market was bigger than expected last year. In particular, an installation rush in Vietnam and China took place in December and pushed global demand upward. PV InfoLink estimates that global module demand in 2020 reached 140 GW. Analyst Mars Chang delves into the numbers.
Sterling and Wilson wins $127.5 million order in Egypt
India’s Sterling and Wilson – which has a global solar engineering, procurement and construction portfolio of more than 10.6 GWp – says that its latest contract in Egypt is for one of the country’s largest PV projects.
First Solar sells 900 MW of PV in US market
First Solar has sold off U.S. solar projects, including 200 MW scheduled to go into service in June, as well as 700 MW of capacity in early-stage development.
Australian renewables buck wholesale electricity price trend
There is normally a spike in average wholesale electricity prices in Australia in January. This year, however, increased solar PV and wind generation have bucked this traditional trend.
Italy set to host a battery gigafactory
Italian start-up Italvolt wants to build a €4 billion EV battery manufacturing facility in Italy. The site for the project is currently being identified, and the factory’s initial capacity should reach 45 GWh.
Spain installed 3.2 GW of solar last year
According to Spain’s renewable energy association, APPA Renovables, of the solar capacity deployed last year, 623 MW was for distributed generation PV and 2,633 MW came from utility scale solar plants.
Israel reveals bidders for 300 MW solar-plus-storage tender in Negev Desert
The Israeli authorities have selected 24 bidders for the tender’s final phase. Construction of the solar-plus-storage facility is planned for late 2021, and completion in 2023.
Spectral-splitting filters for more efficient photovoltaic-thermal panels
A British-Chinese research group has created a new framework to assess the performance and efficiency limits of photovoltaic-thermal solar panels. They say that the improvement of spectral-splitting (SS) filters in the devices will be the key to their future commercial success.
