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After several year of stalled and failed projects, Zimbabwe’s government is now seeking to implement existing projects, and to get rid of licensed projects that have never been realized. The first attempt will be pushing forward the 100 MW Gwanda solar project, which had been awarded to Intratek in 2015. The government is further planning to grant incentives to rooftop PV under net metering.

A report published by New Zealand’s state-owned transmission grid operator Transpower finds the widespread uptake of distributed battery storage could play an important role in supporting the power system as rooftop PV and electric vehicles are increasingly adopted.

Through a new procuremente exercise, the Oman Power and Water Procurement company (OPWP) is now seeking developers for the Manah Solar I IPP and Manah Solar II IPP projects with a capacity of 500 MW and 600 MW, respectively. Both plants will be located at Manah which is around 150 km southwest of Muscat.

Scatec Solar moved into the Malaysian Solar market in late-2016. The company sealed financing for 197 MW of capacity with the help of the country’s green bonds, the year after. Malaysia is continuing on its solar trajectory and will hold the third iteration of its tenders for the allocation of an addition 500 MW in generation capacity.

In 2019, the United States will become the world’s largest market for grid-connected battery energy storage, writes IHS Markit’s Camron Barati, as solar-plus-storage and peaking capacity requirements drive increased procurement.

According to new statistics released by African Energy Live Data, solar represents more than half of total new power generation capacity for the first three months of this year.

Scientists at Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah University of Science Technology have set a new efficiency record of 21.09% for a single crystal perovskite. The researchers say this highlights a place for the technology to develop alongside the multicrystalline versions which are progressing toward commercialization.

The Armenian solar market has been somewhat slow to take off, but it could be experiencing a serious push, following an announcement that Abu Dhabi-based energy company Masdar plans to deploy 500 MW of solar and wind capacity in the country.

According to the new auction schedule approved by the Italian Ministry of Economic Development, three more renewables procurement exercises will be held each year in 2020 and 2021. Through the seven bidding rounds, the Italian authorities seek to allocate approximately 4.8 GW of new power generation capacity.

Norwegian headquartered polysilicon manufacturer REC Silicon has announced that it will lay off another 100 workers at its Moses Lake facility in the western United States, as the factory heads into long term shutdown.