Deutsche Bank attempts to wind up Singyes Solar
The German lender has issued a winding up petition over a $6.27 million debt and could scupper the manufacturer’s plans to restructure its defaulted payments and be taken over by a Chinese state-backed entity.
New US study finds renewable energy storage costs need to drop 90%
Researchers in the US have published a study that brings 20 years of renewable energy (solar PV and/or wind plus storage) generation into line with historical energy-demand profiles, to ascertain at what storage cost point renewables can cost-effectively consistently meet 100% demand.
Agrivoltaics good for agriculture and panel efficiency
A U.S. research team has found the most efficient locations for agrivoltaics include western America, southern Africa and the Middle East. The researchers found crop land, grasslands and wetlands were the best environments for PV projects linked to agriculture. Conditions suitable for crops are ideal for improving solar module efficiency.
Oman launches tender for 146 MW of solar-diesel-storage projects
The Rural Areas Electricity Company wants to build hybrid plants in 11 non-interconnected areas of the sultanate. The projects will have a total of 48 MW of solar power generation capacity and 70 MW of diesel and the storage component will have total installed power of 28 MW and a storage capacity of 14 MWh.
The weekend read: Perovskites step out of the labs
Michael van der Gugten, Sales and Marketing Executive at Smit Thermal Solutions, is convinced that perovskite solar cells have reached maturity, and that they are ready to make the step from the lab to production. He is leading the organization of a conference on this topic and expects that the perovskite community, production equipment suppliers and crystalline silicon cell manufacturers will discuss the implementation of perovskite-silicon tandem cells or the production of standalone perovskite modules.
South Korea has added 1.64 GW of solar so far this year
This new development has brought the country’s cumulative installed solar capacity to more than 9.5 GW. Around 91.5% of the newly installed capacity is represented by PV systems below 1 MW in size.
Residential storage in Europe to grow 500% by 2024
A new report from analysts at Wood Mackenzie forecasts 6.6 GWh of residential energy storage to be installed across Europe by 2024. The economics of the technology are at a tipping point, increasingly reaching grid parity in European markets. With rising electricity demand and falling battery system costs, the trend will further spread across the continent and fuel an uptick in demand.
Tunisia announces grid-connection of its first solar park
The 10 MW facility is located in Tozeur, in southern Tunisia. The project was also financed by the German development bank KFW under Tunisia’s solar program Plan Solaire Tunisien (PST).
SMA reports losses for first half of 2019
For the second half of the year the German inverter producer expects a significant increase in revenues and earnings, mainly due to high order intake. It also confirmed its forecast for the full fiscal year, despite declining sales and earnings in the first six months of 2019.
Winners, projects, prices of Portugal’s record PV auction
The Portuguese government has published the final results and a list of all projects selected in the procurement exercise. French IPP Akuo is the developer behind the record bid of €0.0147/kWh, which was for one of three projects it won in the auction. The second- and third-lowest winning bids were €0.01637/kWh and €0.0171/kWh, while the highest was €0.03116/kWh. Overall, the authorities allocated 1.15 GW of solar in the oversubscribed auction, down from initial plans for around 1.4 GW.
