Covid

UK researchers have evaluated the impact that heat pumps could have on fuel poverty in England and Scotland. They have found that the benefits heat pumps can provide exist in both scenarios.

The African Development Bank has announced that European and US donors will provide $20 million of concessional loans to support pay-as-you-go solar companies in sub-Saharan Africa.

The Covid-19 pandemic and resulting economic fallout have had a variety of impacts on the clean energy transition, with some sectors being more affected than others. Earlier this year, the International Energy Agency (IEA) warned of slowed progress towards sustainable energy goals due to Covid-19 and reversed progress in many areas crucial in reaching net zero, such as energy efficiency, clean cooking, or access to electricity. There is one sector, however, that has shown remarkable resilience since the beginning of the pandemic and has been able to maintain, and even accelerate, its rapid growth since 2020: green energy infrastructure.

With China’s latest pandemic clampdown exacerbating existing costs for raw materials and shipping, big annual rises in solar cell and module shipments added up to a more than 91% fall in income from operations in just three months.

The national goals set by European countries two years ago already look hopelessly out of date thanks to the global PV boom. The Euro trade association for the industry has called for ambitions to be radically scaled up in 2023 if the world is to have any chance of capping temperature rises at 1.5C.

A news article published on Friday stated 13 cases had been confirmed and a senior physician said the working hypothesis was that at least half of the 120 people who attended the event had been infected. pv magazine has contacted Scatec for an update.

While the Sino-Canadian business expects high polysilicon and shipping costs to be a temporary problem, CEO Shawn Qu has acknowledged the company will have overcapacity in cell and wafer production lines by the end of the year.

The input costs of the two biggest contributors to solar plant development expense have gone through the roof since the world began to come out of Covid-19 lockdowns, to leave project developers with some difficult choices.

The global off-grid solar appliance market began an uneven recovery from the worst ravages of the global pandemic in the second half of last year, according to market body GOGLA, but more finance and policy support must be made available to have any chance of achieving universal electricity access this decade.

But new ventures into coal-fired steam and petrochemicals products helped state-owned China Shuifa Singyes towards a significantly healthier balance sheet in 2020.