Another big solar PPA signed in Italy
Danish developer European Energy has secured a 12-year agreement from Axpo Italia, the local unit of Swiss energy provider Axpo. Around half the 300 MW of solar projects the company is developing in Italy are now ready to build.
Abu Dhabi lends $23m for solar, Mauritius to get 10 MW of PV rooftops
Togo, Mauritius and Guyana will all receive backing for solar projects in the latest round of funding from the Abu Dhabi Fund for Development-IRENA Project Facility.
Planned 5 GW Indian solar plant will be ‘the world’s largest’
Known as the “roof of the world,” the scenic Ladakh region of the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir could soon host the world’s largest single-location PV plant.
UK government opens consultation on large scale PV-plus-storage rules
In the U.K., systems bigger than 50 MW fall under the Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects regime and require special permitting. With the aim of optimizing the market for higher storage penetration, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy is holding a consultation until March 25 to determine whether to retain the 50 MW threshold.
SMIT Thermal Solutions secures a big order from China
The Dutch PV equipment provider will supply 15 vacuum coating systems for a planned 500 MW production capacity of cadmium telluride thin film modules. The value of the contract is more than €40 million.
BBOXX secures $31m investment – as well as a top eco prize
Topping off a great week for the British next generation utility platform, BBOXX won the Zayed Energy Prize after receiving funding from the Africa Infrastructure Investment Managers fund to speed up roll out of its platform in Rwanda, Kenya and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Bahrain launches 100 MW PV tender
The large-scale IPP project will be developed at a landfill site. The plant is part of the kingdom’s plan to deploy 255 MW of solar by 2025.
Greece adds just 41 MW of solar in 2018
The amount of new PV added by Greece in 2018 is tiny but signals the sector has been restarted, mainly thanks to renewable energy tenders. However, significant challenges remain when it comes to meeting a 2020 solar energy target.
PV rooftop simulators may unlock solar growth in developing cities
IRENA says technologies for 3D rooftop footprint generation and solar irradiation modelling are becoming increasingly cheap, making them suitable for deployment anywhere in the world. Developing cities across Africa and Asia could access such technical resources to plan rooftop PV development.
US will see more than 8 GW of solar come online this year
With 4.3 GW of utility-scale solar and 3.9 of distributed generation predicted, the figures collated from federal sources don’t take account of the huge capacity of solar projects waiting in the interconnection queues of seven grid operators.
