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Economic thinktank Carbon Tracker used financial modeling to determine the profitability of every coal power plant in the EU. On average, 79% of the facilities run at a loss, with Germany, Spain and Czechia among the states particularly exposed to the consequences – for coal investors and the public.

Despite promises by President Trump to save the coal industry, the crisis in the sector is clear. Solar, wind and batteries have the world to gain.

The World Climate Summit in Santiago de Chile, set to be held in just a few weeks, has just been cancelled. Against a background of social protests in the country, concerns have recently grown as to whether logistics and security could be guaranteed for the event. Nevertheless, social problems and environmental protection must not be played off against each other: Both are closely linked to the economic paradigms of recent decades.

Saudi energy giant ACWA Power won the tender for the project in August thanks to a lowest final electricity price offer of $0.02752/kWh. Construction of the facility, which will use bifacial panels, is expected to be complete by April 2021.

With solar energy about to reach the iconic terawatt (TW) milestone of globally installed PV capacity, waste handling and end-of-life (EoL) scenarios become a pressing matter.

Enormous order intake is ensuring high production capacity utilization at the German PV equipment provider. The company said demand was particularly strong for high-efficiency solar cell production equipment in Asia. Thus far this year, however, that has not been reflected in the balance sheet.

Two PV plants are set to be built under the Project for Promotion of Auctions for Renewable Energies program, being implemented with the support of Mozambican utility Electricidade de Mocambique, which is likely to be the future off-taker of the solar energy generated.

Analysts at Fitch Solutions have published a report singling out Spain and Brazil as ‘outperformers’ in the global solar market and labelled Vietnam the “market to watch”. The analysts expect surging growth from the Southeast Asian nation to continue in the coming decade.

The islands of the Caribbean have been focusing on the deployment of storage solutions, minigrids and microgrids in response to the damage their power systems suffered during the 2017 hurricane season. But with the opportunities, there are also challenges.

The local authority is seeking proposals to build mini-grids with generation capacities of more than 5 kW to power hospitals, markets, water pumping and street lighting. The council has expressed a strong preference for the build, operate and transfer project development model.