Europe

pv magazine met with representatives of Chinese inverter manufacturer Huawei at the company’s booth at Intersolar Europe today to discuss the patent infringement case brought by SolarEdge in Germany.

ESB and Oersted UK independently announced this week they have acquired storage assets to deliver ancillary services to the UK grid operator.

While tariffs may inhibit India’s ability to benefit from anticipated record low Chinese panel prices, Japan already has a strong pipeline and two of the world’s solar pioneers – Spain and Italy – could be given a shot in the arm by new administrations.

The inverter manufacturer alleges that its patented DC optimized inverter technology has been infringed on in the German market. It adds that Huawei’s residential inverters use an architecture, which violates its patents. Huawei has said it is “evaluating the claims”, however it does not believe it has infringed any valid patent rights.

There is no official confirmation that a request for a review of the anti-dumping and anti-subsidy measures against Chinese solar PV manufacturers has been submitted in Brussels in early June, however there are several reasons to believe it has likely happened.

Solar PV capacity is set to grow 17-fold, and wind six-fold, by 2050, to account for nearly half of global electricity generation, predicts BNEF, while investments will reach US$11.5 trillion. Cost reductions will drive this charge, particularly in the battery market, which will benefit from the EV manufacturing ramp up. Despite this, the electricity sector is still failing to bring CO₂ emissions down to the required levels, with its continued dependence on gas.

German PV production equipment manufacturers are recording a decline in incoming orders. Thin film technology, meanwhile, is seeing significant market share increases.

According to a new report released by Climate Action Network (CAN) Europe, no single EU country is performing sufficiently in both showing ambition and making progress in reducing carbon emissions, thus casting a long shadow over the Paris Agreement objectives. Sweden is leading the charge in fighting climate change, followed by Portugal and France.

Greece-based Metka has signed an engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract for the development of the 300 MW Talasol solar PV farm, in Spain.

Solar has covered 5.8% of Italy’s power demand so far this year. Newly installed PV capacity for the first four months of this year, meanwhile, has reached 116 MW, around 6.4% up from the same period in 2017.