Middle East

According to the latest figures from the Turkish grid operator, 109 MW of new solar was added in the first quarter, most of it net-metered rooftop systems. The troubled 1 GW national tender originally planned in January 2019, however, has been postponed for a second time, with the government stating the Covid-19 crisis will cause the exercise to be staged next year.

The losers in a world which no longer runs on fossil fuels are obvious but the dividend from shrugging off hydrocarbon dependency will be spread around most of the world so it is the nations which are winning the cleantech manufacturing and intellectual property race which appear best positioned for the future.

Solar remains an interesting option to power water desalination despite obstacles to its widespread adoption. A recent study has highlighted the processing or dumping of brine waste as an important factor to consider.

The new regulations state that import duties on solar modules will now be calculated per kilogram rather than by square meter, as they were under the old regulations. This could favor Turkish manufacturers, as high-efficiency modules are generally now heavier than they were a few years ago. Under the previous rules, PV panel imports enjoyed reduced value-added tax rates as yields increased and module sizes remained unchanged.

Grenergy was this week due to ship 400,000 face masks to Latin America as European developers today voiced a fear project finance will become increasingly difficult to find as the coronavirus lockdown continues.

A French-Turkish research team has created an economic model to optimize scheduling for solar-powered EV charging units. The proposed model suggests that such projects might be more profitable today than at the end of the decade, depending on a wide range of variables.

Turkey’s stuttering economy, shifting PV policy landscape, and the fruitless YEKA tenders have undermined the country’s solar progress, even though it was considered Europe’s most promising market as recently as two years ago. But its rooftops could still bloom if new regulations that will be issued in May manage to make solar attractive to both businesses and households alike.

The shortlisted developers are EDF, Total, ACWA Power, Masdar, First Solar, Marubeni, and Al Blagha Holding.

Researchers in the United Arab Emirates have proposed a PV-powered irrigation system that runs on a fuzzy logic-based algorithm, with a remote-control wireless monitoring system interface.

The Middle Eastern kingdom has ordered the shutdown of solar wheeling facilities which use the grid to connect to energy offtakers. The move has come in response to tumbling electricity demand after the nation halted all non-essential industries as it tries to limit the spread of Covid-19.