Middle East

It’s claimed the decentralized desalination system can deliver a levelized cost for desalinated water of US$0.7-4.3/m3, depending on PV costs and electricity prices. It was built with several concentrated photovoltaic/thermal (CPV-T) collectors, a hot water tank, a V-MEMD module, a seawater feed tank, and a distillate tank.

According to official statistics from grid operator TEIAS, the country added around 400 MW of PV capacity in the first four months of 2021.

The cell features an open-circuit voltage of 1.1 V and a short-circuit current of 26 milliampere per cm-2, which the research team described as the best performance for an inverted perovskite cell based on single-crystal methylammonium lead triiodide. The device was built with a microns-thick absorber layer placed between an electron transport top layer and a hole-transport bottom layer.

The manufacturer says it shipped 1.69 GW of its inverters in the first three months of the year and predicted a further quarter-on-quarter rise in revenue from the current window.

Although the government last month started offering purchase incentives for residential batteries, a net metering regime which is in place for solar households means there is little to prompt PV owners to splash out more on storage.

The first phase of the procurement exercise is expected to be finalized by the end of the week. The record low bid, for Turkey, was submitted for a 10 MW project in the Antalya region, in the sunny southern part of the country.

The $18bn worth of sustainable finance instruments floated in the nation last year marked a retreat from previous highs but, with most of the bonds issued from July onwards, the recovery is under way, according to the IFC, which is anticipating a more-than-$100 billion sector in emerging markets over the next three years.

The Turkish Ministry of Energy has completed, thus far, only the tender’s first 60 MW tranche, and the four winning bids ranged from $0.0248/kWh to $0.0335/kWh. The other tranches of the procurement exercise will be finalized over the next few days.

India’s Larsen & Toubro has announced plans to provide EPC services to support the deployment of 300 MW of solar in Saudi Arabia, under a contract with a consortium involving Masdar, EDF Renewables, and Saudi Arabia’s Nesma.

Larsen & Toubro is set to work on the 1.5 GW Sudair plant – the largest solar project in Saudi Arabia to have a signed power purchase agreement in place. Upon completion, it will also be one of the biggest PV installations in the world.