Western Europe

The Dutch association of national-regional electricity and gas network operators, Netbeheer Nederland, is leading a plan to deploy up to 2 million hybrid heat pumps by 2030. The plan should be supported by a subsidy scheme by the government and enable the installation of at least 100,000 heat pumps per year from 2024.

Germany might tender a total of 6 GW of solar next year if the authorities decide to move forward with plans to add 4 GW to the existing volume. An additional 100 MW could be tendered for agrivoltaics and floating PV.

Energy regulator Ofgem has announced it aims to bring in market-wide half-hourly settlement across the retail electricity market – from October 2025. The long timescale reflects a sluggish attitude at an inconsistent regulator which appears to be planning an unpredictable route to net zero.

Before the official start of production, the Swiss photovoltaic manufacturer signed contracts with several suppliers that only use polysilicon produced by Wacker Chemie. Meyer Burger plans to start producing its solar modules and cells in Germany in the second quarter.

The Anklam municipality approved the resolution for the project construction. The land-use planning for what could become the largest planned photovoltaic power plant in Germany to date can now begin.

The new budget will be devoted to private individuals only. The Swedish Energy Agency has so far devoted around $570 million to the solar rebate program, for the 2009-21 period.

UK-based Xlinks is planning to build 10.5 GW of wind and solar in Morocco and sell the power generated by the huge plant in the UK. This should be made possible by a 3,800 km high voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission line that would be connected to locations in Wales and Devon. The company’s CEO, Simon Morrish, spoke with pv magazine about the ambitious project, and on how it should become feasible.

Covid-19 disruption has been cited as the chief culprit as imports from China, Thailand and Vietnam slumped from April to January, but safeguarding duty also appears to have had an impact, with unaffected imports from nations such as Myanmar, Chad and Russia on the rise and Malaysian trade keeping steady.

The French energy company sold its 60.5% stake in Engie EPS to the Taiwan Cement Corporation for around €132 million.

Soto Solar has submitted the project proposal to the Ministry of the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge (Miteco). The solar plant could start production in 2023 or 2024 and will have a generation capacity of more than 2,000 GWh/year.