IRENA: more solar than wind added in 2016 in strongest ever year for renewables
2016 was the strongest year ever for global renewable additions, reveals the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), with the growth of solar particularly dominant.
Tesla to begin taking orders for Solar Roof in April
Production of the luxury BIPV product will not begin until “mid-2017”, and a waiting list has appeared on the Tesla site.
The pv magazine weekly news digest
Hanwha Q Cells, Enphase Energy, Solarwatt and EDF are among the big names grabbing the headlines in a week where new product launches and new GW-scale tender details were revealed.
IHS Markit: Storage and better grid efficiency could save hundreds of billions each year
A new white paper published by analysts at IHS Markit compares the electricity network with other key systems such as transport and data infrastructure. The report concludes that increasing the amount of electricity storage available could create a more flexible, efficient and reliable grid, and save billions of dollars each year.
Renewables helped drive 62% drop in new coal power capacity in 2016, finds report
Coal production in freefall, says new report by Greenpeace, Sierra Club and CoalSwarm, which recorded a 62% reduction in new coal power construction starts and a 48% drop in pre-construction activity last year.
Record shipments, lower revenue: Canadian Solar 2016 financials reveal impact of lower module ASPs
The Chinese solar company shipped 5,232 MW in 2016 but saw its revenue fall from $3.47bn in 2015 to $2.85bn last year as the global price squeeze on solar modules hit the firm’s bottom line.
IEA, IRENA join forces to prompt redesign of energy markets
Berlin Energy Transition Dialogue 2017 will see the presentation of a joint report by International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) and International Energy Agency (IEA), their first ever collaboration with an eye on decarbonization of global energy system.
The pv magazine weekly news digest
Gigawatts a-go-go this week as Turkey, Algeria and Vietnam all toy with those magical GWs, while in more mature markets German storage figures provided reasons for optimism and Blattner Energy took the top spot for U.S. EPCs.
Solar demand is boosting silver prices, says Silver Institute
Two different reports highlight how PV demand is currently improving silver’s industrial offtake. The Silver Institute says that prices have increased 9% since the beginning of this year, while ETF Securities says that mining capital expenditure and investments are declining, and that this could further weigh on silver supply.
Power to the people
Distributed storage costs: With the average payback cost of a home battery storage system sticking stubbornly at around ten years, skeptics remain unconvinced that mass-market adoption of distributed storage is on the cards any time soon. So what measures is the industry taking to expedite cost reductions, improve storage technology, and shift the conversation from a ‘nice to have’ to a ‘must have’?
