Western Europe

Solar had the largest share in Spain’s renewable energy auction, leaving wind power, which won all the allocated capacity in the previous auction, with just 720 MW.

British renewable energy developer Lightsource has entered into a £1 billion partnership with asset manager BlackRock Real Assets to create Kingfisher, which will target 1 GW of solar capacity in the U.K. Partnership will also eye storage opportunities.

The provisional insolvency administrator of the German module manufacturer is now in talks with a potential investor for the acquisition of the company’s German manufacturing facilities in Freiberg and Arnstadt. Around 1,200 employees will be transferred to a transitional company.

A report published by German engineering federation VDMA reveals strong demand for solar production equipment, with order intake in the first quarter of 2017 tripling over the previous quarter. The book to bill ratio of orders to delivered systems hit the ‘very high’ level of 4.4 for the first quarter of 2017

The Talasol Solar PV power plant will be located in Talaván, Cáceres, in the southern region of Extremadura. Israeli solar company Ellomay acquired the project in May.

In the first year energy storage and electric vehicle sectors are included, REA’s annual publication reveals a 2.5% YoY increase in the number of jobs in the renewable energy industry, but also a significant decline in growth from two years previous when it was at nearly 9%. The Association points to negative policy changes as the reason behind the downward trend.

In 2016, the North European country saw the addition of 19 MW of new PV systems. As the Finnish economy seems now to be reviving after several years of stagnation, solar (and especially community solar) may become even more interesting for homeowners and businesses.

The U.S. manufacturer will provide its modules for 157 rooftop projects totaling 26.8 MW and three ground-mounted PV plants equaling 3.1 MW, that will all be located in France.

As costs are driven down by the economies of scale and improvements in manufacturing and deployments, new technologies are finding their way to widespread adoption, as seen in the case of solar modules. In order to facilitate the prediction of costs and outcomes for new energy storage technologies, a team of researchers from Imperial College London has developed a tool to help policy makers and investors make informed decisions.

Swiss PV equipment supplier Meyer Burger has received a further order for its MAiA PERC production platform SiNA cell coating system from an existing customer based in Asia. The combined contract for both technologies amounts to CHF 22 million ($23.2 million).