Asia

Vietnam had already successfully commissioned 1.5 GW of utility-scale PV at the end of May this year, and there is no sign of this slowing down, with another 2 GW teed up for June 2019. The breakneck speed in development is making Vietnam a powerhouse in the region in installed capacity, even nipping at the heels of Australia. Rystad Energy’s Minh Koi Le looks at the state of play in the Vietnamese solar market.

The IPP released its latest financial figures and leadership says that with growth across all business units, Q2 2019 is its best quarter ever.

If China could travel back to the 1960s with its 2016 PV generation capacity it could harvest an additional 14 TWh of solar power, according to a study by academics at universities in Switzerland and the Netherlands. With a mixed record for reducing pollution, the country’s solar fleet output appears to be drastically affected by dimmed solar radiation.

The huge floating plant is expected to be located on a water surface close to the Saemangeum, an estuarine tidal flat on the coast of the Yellow Sea. Construction on the facility is planned to start in the second half of next year. Around 4.6 trillion won ($3.9 billion) of private funds will be invested in the project.

Chinese thin film manufacturer Hanergy has announced plans to integrate its CIGS modules into the 150,000 square meter rooftop of a ‘sky bridge’ project planned as part of a major ‘tech city’ project under construction in Shanghai.

The Business & Human Rights Resource Centre has published a report looking at the human rights due diligence performance of the renewables industry and examined individual generation methods. The report finds that, while the solar sector is not top of the sad list, its vest also isn’t completely unstained.

The second part of our hidden champions series head to Bangladesh, where rapid industrialization is driving increased electricity demand. Already a major off grid market, Bangladesh is seeing increasing interest from international investors and is taking the first steps toward realizing its formidable potential for large scale solar installations.

Japanese materials company Toray has announced plans to open a facility for manufacturing battery separator films for use in lithium-ion batteries. The factory is expected to begin operations in July 2021 and will increase Toray’s production material for the component by around 20%.

Western Australia-based solar glass developer ClearVue has signed a deal with Taiwanese thin-film solar module manufacturer BeyondPV to set up a dedicated production line for solar strip modules at its production facility in the city of Tainan.

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.