Eastern Europe

An Austro-Russian conglomerate says 75 MW of new solar capacity will be commissioned by the end of November.

We need to build solar parks only when there are no more square meters left on the rooftops, writes Mikhail Lifshitz, co-owner of Russia-based JSC Rotec.

The scheme will be open to renewable energy systems not exceeding 500 kW in capacity. The Albanian government expects the program to enable the deployment of 200 MW of PV.

Reports about a leaked document suggest that Germany, Italy, Greece and Slovakia have joined a group of EU member states that support a carbon neutrality bill. Germany refused to support such plans in March, but with political support for the German Green Party skyrocketing, Chancellor Angela Merkel is likely to revise her government’s position. With Germany now on the ticket, a plan could be finalized at some point this year.

Hevel Group has started building 100 MW of solar in northern Kazakhstan. The project, which the Russian PV group claims will be one of the largest solar plants in the Commonwealth of Independent States, is part of its 178 MW pipeline in the Central Asian country.

Italian industrial group Maccaferri, the parent company of the insolvent EPC contractor, has also filed for insolvency for another three units of its energy business.

Three projects with generation capacities of 5.6-6 MW were pre qualified for a 5.6 MW capacity procurement and Finnish utility Fortum secured the only PV project selected. The capex figure offered by solar developers was lower than that for 71 MW of wind power allocated and lower than for previous PV projects.

The government of the Balkan country is tendering several PV projects with a total generation capacity of 25 MW in Sveti Nikole and another 10 MW in Makedonski Brod, all on public land. Another tender, for 27 MW of capacity on private land, will be launched in the coming weeks.

The new net metering tariff will be equal to market prices and will go into force as soon as the Albanian government approves it. According to a local interest group led by Albanian company EuroElektra, that could happen within the next two weeks. Overall, the scheme could facilitate the installation of around 200 MW of solar power.

The PPA relates to a 5 MW solar project that the renewable energy unit of local utility PGE is developing in south-central Poland. The facility, which is expected to come online in mid-2022, will sell power to two big chemical companies operating in the region.