Spain

Spanish law firm Rödl & Partner provides an update on distressed solar power purchase agreements (PPAs) in Spain, focusing on the impact, and economic and legal consequences, of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Spanish PV product distributor Techno Sun has published a report analyzing the consequences of high-power modules for installers and distributors. The guide provides a method to calculate the additional costs of large solar panels from different points of view.

An Anglo-German report has suggested the environmentally-friendly desire to use only clean power to produce hydrogen, outlined by nations such as Germany, could end up being more emissions-heavy than the more pragmatic embrace of blue hydrogen under consideration in the U.K.

A global ranking of large scale solar project capacities indicates prominent roles for a resurgent Spain, behind the usual top three of China, the U.S. and India, with Australia and the Netherlands also on the rise. There were disappointing returns, though, for the U.K., Italy and Canada.

Researchers in Spain have compiled a list of key performance indicators intended at evaluating not only the quality of a heat pump or a PV generator; but also the quality of their integration. pv magazine spoke to research co-author Celena Lorenzo about the potential and challenges of this combination. According to her, heat pumps powered by PV alone are efficient enough for both cooling and heating.

Enel Green Power is combining existing PV arrays with agriculture at nine pilot sites in Europe. pv magazine recently spoke to Giovanni Tula, the company’s head of sustainability, about the business model and its replicability.

The Solcan scheme had a budget of €20 million. Most of the assigned PV capacity will be located in the islands of Gran Canaria and Fuerteventura.

A total of 6 Covid-19 positives have just been detected among workers at the Solara4 plant, located in the Portuguese Algarve. According to information obtained by pv magazine, work at the facility has been partially stopped.

Spanish water-treatment specialist Emalsa has teamed up with Instituto Tecnologico de Canarias ITC and Universidad Europea de Canarias to study the feasibility of a 1.53 MW floating solar plant that could potentially power the Piedra Santa desalination plant in Gran Canaria.

A newly proposed solar project in Portugal could almost double the nation’s installed PV capacity. The installation will likely require an investment of around €1 billion.