Central & South America

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.

Alsol Energías Renováveis is specializing in the installation of residential, commercial and industrial PV systems. Energisa has approximately six million clients across nine Brazilian states.

The plant, for which no official documents are available online, is being opposed by the nation’s Committee of Agricultural, Commercial, Industrial and Financial Associations which claims it is against the interest of its promoter, utility INDE.

Located in the town of La Paz, in Baja California Sur, the Aura Solar III plant has a generation capacity of 32 MW and includes a lithium-ion battery storage system with a capacity of 10.5 MW/7.0 MWh.

The feed-in tariff granted reduces each quarter in line with how much solar capacity was installed in the previous three-month period and the drop will be felt more keenly in sun-rich Corsica and the nation’s overseas territories than on the mainland.

The energy program will initially relate to combined cycle gas power plants with a capacity of 2.76 GW. No mention was made in electric utility CFE’s official statement of the possibility of increasing capacity by harnessing renewables.