The Mexican National Center for Energy Control (CENACE) has announced that the fourth long-term auction has been temporarily suspended, due to changes in the management of CENACE and in the Federal Electricity Commission.

At the weekend’s G20 summit, a framework agreement for the project expansion was signed by project initiator Jemse SE and Chinese partners Power China and Shanghai Electric. The plant expansion will include the deployment of storage capacity. The project is one of two PV plants, totaling 400 MW, selected in round one of the RenovAr program for large-scale solar and renewable energies.

The 1 MW array – to be expanded to 5 MW – is being tested before official commissioning. The plant is at the Sobradinho dam, a 175 MW hydroelectric facility on the São Francisco River, in the state of Bahia.

The US$215 million Apodi solar park is located in the city of Quixeré, in the state of Ceará. The project was selected in Brazil’s second auction for renewables, which was held in 2015.

The power plant will be connected to a 3 MW/1.5 MWh lithium-ion battery system. Lenders are the Dutch Development Bank (FMO), the French Development Agency (Proparco) and the Inter-American Development Bank.

The Technological Institute for Solar Energy, Low Emissions Mining and Advanced Materials of Lithium and other materials, will be set up with a mixture of public funding and 30% private investment.

In a new report, BloombergNEF notes a significant uptake in renewable energy in developing countries, which are clearly outperforming OECD countries. The trend is due to reductions in equipment costs and new business models that enable access to capital. Still, many emerging markets are also the biggest installers of new coal capacity. India and China alone, are said to account for 81% of newly added coal-fired power stations.

The €240 million Parque Fotovoltaico Sol de Vallenar project is being developed by Spain’s Cox Energy in Chile’s northern region of Atacama.

The Pirapora solar complex, located in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais, began supplying electricity to the Brazilian grid in mid-2018.

Through the tender, the province’s state-owned power provider Empresa Provincial de la Energía (EPE) intends to select PV power projects not exceeding 5 MW in size, and wind farms up to 10 MW. Selected projects will be awarded a 20-year PPA.