Belgium’s largest PV rooftop commissioned by ArcelorMittal
The €7.5 million project, built by Dutch energy provider Eneco, is intended to power operations at the Ghent factory of the Indian steel manufacturer. Arcelor’s employees were invited to participate through crowdfunding.
French postal service aims to deliver stable energy bill using renewables
The La Poste Group wants one or more green corporate PPAs, to be procured through a tender. The postal service wants to hedge against volatile energy prices.
Poland slashes VAT for residential solar from 23% to 8%
The Polish parliament has adopted new environmental provisions which also include a tax reduction for micro PV. The measure comes on top of the Mój Prąd rebate scheme for residential rooftop projects ranging in size from 2 kW to 10 kW which was launched in July.
An organic solar cell for indoor light
A Swedish-Chinese research team has developed an organic cell said to be ideal for wide use in daily life to power internet of things-enabled devices. The cell could be used to power sensors that detect and measure moisture, particle concentrations, temperature and other parameters indoors.
Total expands solar business in Asia
The French oil giant and China’s Envision Group are forming a joint venture offering PV systems combined with energy management solutions. Total Eren is also involved in a 100 MW solar project in Uzbekistan.
Brexit paralysis and lack of incentives leave community energy facing uphill struggle in the UK
The future benefits of technology such as smart meters and the associated aggregation of small scale generation are not being adequately rewarded, support for solar and wind is being cut off and parliament is fixated solely on one issue.
SMA: ‘We can’t be credible if we’re not sustainable’
Credibility comes not just from offering products that generate clean electricity, but also from the way in which those products are manufactured, says SMA Solar Technology CEO Jürgen Reinert. Here, transparency and sustainability are key. That’s why one of the world’s largest PV inverter producers has partnered with pv magazine’s UP sustainability initiative. In the following Q&A, Reinert lays out what SMA is doing to step UP its green game.
Dutch government seeks to privatize Tennet
Tennet needs more than €4.75 billion to invest in cross-border grid infrastructure between Germany and the Netherlands, as rising volumes of solar and wind are complicating network operations, said Dutch Finance Minister Wopke Hoekstra in a recent letter to the Dutch parliament, adding that the government may need to privatize the state-owned transmission system operator or sell off a stake in it.
Sweden increases budget for solar incentives by $48m
Funding for the rebate scheme had already been increased in April. Overall, the budget for this year now amounts to almost $125 million.
Greece to tender 287 MW of new solar capacity in December
The nation’s energy regulator today announced separate tenders for solar and wind generation capacity will be held on December 12.
