Asia

Private sector fossil fuel spending on exploration is drying up just as modest rises in clean energy investments are being observed. With stock market investors increasingly embracing renewables, the IEA has observed positive signals in its latest energy investment report, but warned we are still doing far too little to keep global heating at bay.

Lamps, water pumps and filtration systems are an increasingly common sight in the camps of Cox’s Bazar with more extensive off-grid home systems having been brought along the refugee trail by some homeowners fleeing Myanmar’s Rakhine state.

The floating plant will be deployed at the 20 MW Wushantou hydroelectric power dam operated by Taiwanese state-owned utility Taiwan Power Corp, in Tainan city.

The Chinese module manufacturer said the result was confirmed by the Institute for Solar Energy Research in Hamelin, Germany.

Scientists in China developed a new kesterite solar cell they say could be suitable for indoor or outdoor applications. The bifacial solar cell reached 9.3% frontside efficiency, and also achieved a 9.0% on the backside.

GCL-Poly will provide JA Solar with 148,000 metric tons of polysilicon over the next five years. Tongwei produced its first 210mm PERC cell at its Jintang factory.

Until 2016, Nepal suffered from chronic power shortages. At that time, just 65% of the country’s population had access to electricity. Assessing the situation, the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) estimated that the country has the potential for 2.1 GW of installed PV capacity. Although the Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) has officially been able to buy solar power under long-term PPAs since July 2014, the majority of projects granted these contracts have been large-scale hydropower plants. Following slow activity, plans are finally afoot, however, to boost the country’s solar footprint.

Researchers in China have developed a fault detection method for PV systems that combines both neural networks and fuzzy logic principles within a single framework. It considers seven input variables and an output variable.

Bridge To India has revised its estimate for utility-scale solar additions in the April-June period to 1.35 GW, from an earlier estimate of 2.35 GW.

With the nation among the world’s top ten greenhouse gas emitting states, energy analysts from three policy advisories have spelled out how Jakarta could hit net zero by mid century rather than 2070, as currently planned. However, the energy transition would require uncharacteristically long term thinking.