Central & South America

In the first five months of the year, 16 solar projects with generation capacities larger than 99 MW were approved by the Colombian authorities. One of the projects may reach a 700 MW capacity, another has 240 MW and five more can generate up to 200 MW as around 3.55 GW of PV capacity has been added to the national pipeline.

While the world’s biggest solar manufacturers are confident there are plenty of alternative markets for a rising volume of panel exports, the message spelled out by first-quarter shipment figures is that protectionism works.

The government of Haiti and the World Bank have put in place a financial instrument to provide access to capital for companies active in clean off-grid energy solutions. The aim is to power 200,000 households over 10 years.

The Spanish developer has acquired the Tacna Solar and Panamericana Solar projects which it developed and built for X-Elio in 2012.

After being excluded from the A-6 auction last year, solar will now be entitled to compete for 20-year PPAs alongside wind, hydro and thermal power projects in future procurements. The next auction will be held on September 26.

The government of the Central American country with the highest installed PV capacity wants to renegotiate contracts awarded in 2015 under an incentive regime. While domestic companies have reportedly agreed to reduce tariffs, international investors are said to be in no mood to capitulate.

After two decades of growth, the amount of newly installed renewable energy capacity is no longer rising and, despite a 7% growth in electricity generation from clean energy sources, global energy-related carbon emissions have risen 1.7%.

The Chinese manufacturer has signed an agreement with Enel Green Power Chile to supply its 1500 Vdc central inverters to a PV plant at Copiapó, the largest to be built in the country to date.

New PV installations under the nation’s net metering scheme grew 137% year-on-year from January to March, according to consultancy Greener, and module imports registered even greater growth, signalling activity in the distributed generation segment is increasing at a faster pace. With the regulator mooting changes to the net metering regime, however, it may reflect customers rushing to secure current tariffs.

Analyst Globaldata says falling system prices, and the need for more resilient grids and favorable policies, continue to fire the energy storage industry around the globe and the Asia-Pacific region is likely to remain the biggest market.