Spain and Italy are European renewables investment hot spots, says CEO, and Mexico really should be too
pv magazine spoke to Mark Jones, chief executive of privately-owned clean energy investment company Susgen about where the newly-launched business is looking to spend the cash pile it has allocated for big, early-stage project pipelines.
Covid-19 weekly round-up: Residential systems in Italy will get a 110% tax rebate and UK consumers are being paid to turn appliances on as coronavirus turns the energy world upside down
Plus, Australia’s Greens want renewables front and center of the post Covid-19 economy and Mexican plant owners are overturning a politically-motivated ban on clean energy, however, Indian developer Acme solar says pandemic delays warrant it reneging on the terms of the record-low solar price agreement it signed.
Innovation promises cheaper solar cell glass manufacturing
Scientists have developed a hybrid production method combining metal mesh and a metal-oxide layer over a glass substrate which they say brings down production cost by 80% compared to the tin-doped, indium oxide-based technology currently in use.
Pouch lamination technique for solar cell encapsulation
Scientists in India have used a pouch laminator to encapsulate a polycrystalline solar cell. The resulting device, the researchers claim, showed better UV photon absorption than solar cells treated with a polymer surface coating.
Indian developer wants to walk away from record low solar price
Acme Solar made headlines in 2018 when its offer to accept $0.0322354 per kilowatt-hour generated at a 600 MW solar farm planned in Rajasthan secured the project from federal body the Solar Energy Corporation of India. Now the developer wants to rip up the agreement, blaming Covid-19-related hold-ups.
Solar tariffs of less than $0.034 not financially viable in India
Solar developers in India must consider a range of risks to secure reasonable returns on solar projects, according to research by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis and JMK Research & Analytics.
Indian solar market may contract by 23% this year
Capacity additions will likely rebound in 2021 to surpass 2019 levels, however, as most of the currently delayed solar projects come online.
Ancient Hindu sun temple, town in eastern India to go 100% solar
The Indian government plans to set up of a 10 MW grid-connected solar project and a range of unique off-grid applications – including solar trees and solar drinking water kiosks – to meet all the energy requirements of town situated next to a 13th-century Hindu temple.
Covid-19 weekly round-up: US job losses raise concern but France and China continued to add new solar
Cell supply shortages could kick-start manufacturing activity in India, EV car sales are braced for a fall while still gaining market share and a new date has been set for the world’s biggest solar trade show.
Sunny regions could see one-cent solar within a decade
The solar learning curve usually applied to panel costs has been extrapolated to the larger, non-module element of the price of solar electricity generated by big projects, leading one commentator to predict new solar projects could be cheaper than legacy fossil fuel plants within 10-15 years in certain markets.
