Middle East

The facility is in the Bor organized industrial zone of Niğde, in central Anatolia. The factory was backed by incentives provided by the country’s Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources.

Lebanon’s Ministry of Energy and Water has qualified 28 domestic and international firms to enter the next stage of a tender for 180 MW of solar generation capacity.

Dubai’s residential sector is set to experience a lift this year thanks to plans to install solar rooftops on 10% of the emirate’s homes. The DEWA-funded rooftop program was launched under the Shams Dubai initiative, which offers net-metering for small-scale solar.

The utility has issued a request for qualification for a further 900 MW of PV at the huge solar park, which is set to reach a total capacity of 5 GW.

The Saudi energy company and Chinese inverter maker and comms firm will team up to use information and communications technology to improve the performance of the former’s PV plants.

Following a petition by domestic PV panel manufacturers, India’s Directorate General of Trade Remedies has recommended the imposition of duties ranging from $537-1,559/metric ton on solar ethylene vinyl acetate sheets imported from China, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia and Thailand.

The tender process for a solar park at the Askar landfill site was launched by Bahrain’s Electricity and Water Authority in March 2017.

Analysts at PV InfoLink said the number of markets open to new technologies such as half-cut and shingled panels is constantly rising. Australia, Japan, Spain, the UAE and Brazil were cited as the hottest markets for Chinese “special modules”. Total annual production in China for half-cut modules, which are set to increase their market share this year, should reach around 20 GW.

Solarpower Europe has released its estimates for Europe’s installation figures in 2018. A reduction in system prices and a policy push boosted solar across the continent. And if the trade association’s CEO is to be believed, the newfound growth has just begun.

Details are few at this stage, with a site for the big project still to be selected, although the Bangladeshi government has confirmed the tariff for electricity produced by the plant will be $0.095/kWh.