Ireland

That was just one of the revelations of the latest Dentons’ Guide to renewables investment in Europe, which also noted solar plants could be switched off in Slovakia, Ireland could go either way on clean power pricing, and Luxembourg is struggling with a surprising headache.

For investment portfolios and for the entire renewables sector, diversity matters. A new independent study shows that by complementing Ireland’s onshore wind sector with greater volumes of large-scale solar, emissions are lower, curtailment decreases, and society potentially gains economically, to the tune of €21 per citizen. Conall Bolger, CEO of the Irish Solar Energy Association, reports on the power of daytime production.

The scheme is now under public consultation and is aimed at enabling citizens, farmers, business owners, and community organizations to sell excess solar power to the grid.

European renewables, including Spanish solar, made big gains as energy demand recovered before the second wave of Covid infections. Nuclear was a notable loser, in part because clean energy volumes in the north of the continent drove down power prices sufficiently to make reactors uncompetitive.

State-owned utility ESB is working with energy storage solution company Fluence and EPC service providers Powercomm Group and Kirby Group on its first battery projects in Ireland.

Often dependent on fuel imports from the mainland and frequently powered by fossil fuels, islands have taken center stage at an online forum which builds on a political process kicked-off by Croatia’s presidency of the European Council.

Plus, details have been revealed of a 2 MW/2.5 MWh grid scale storage demo project in Switzerland and for a peer-to-peer renewable energy certificate marketplace in Southeast Asia.

Taiwanese cell manufacturer Inventec Solar reportedly halted production this month and Ireland is preparing to remove rooftop solar panel restrictions, according to the Irish Independent.

Harsh Goenka, from solar forecasting company Solargis analyzes the results of the nation’s first clean energy tender for pv magazine after the procurement exercise secured an average solar electricity price of €72.92/MWh.

The government has announced the provisional results of the nation’s first renewable energy procurement exercise and says the 1 TWh auction will end up allocating more than 2.2 TWh of generation capacity for an average final electric price of €0.07408/kWh.