Energy

China will build the huge solar park at its own cost for its energy-hungry neighbor in exchange for access to rare earths. The project was announced by the Association of China Rare Earth Industry.

The Norwegian power company acquired the projects for around $17.3 million. The transaction indicates interest in large scale solar is on the rise in Ireland and unsubsidized projects are viable.

German EPC contractor GP Joule is set to begin construction of a 25.4 MW solar plant to sell power on the spot market as part of a diversified plant portfolio. The facility, in the province of Alberta, will expand the increasing list of unsubsidized projects announced in the region in recent months.

The Colombian government has revealed more details of the renewable energy procurement exercise finalized on Monday. Chinese manufacturer Trina was the bidder behind all three successful solar projects in the auction.

A study has estimated the cost of PV project soiling may increase from €3-5 billion last year to €4-7 billion by 2023 due to more extensive deployment in high insolation and soiling-affected regions, such as China and India. The authors of the paper outlined the potential of soiling mitigation technologies while stressing more R&D is needed to reduce costs and for the adoption of such measures on a larger scale.

The average price in the October round of Germany’s solar capacity procurement program fell back below the five-cent mark, helped by expansion of the quota for solar on Bavarian agricultural land. Nineteen of the 27 projects allocated by the Federal Network Agency were such schemes.

That would take the country to 8.28 GW of generation capacity by the end of the next decade with the government stating up to 6 GW of small scale capacity could be required on top. By that stage, however, coal would still amount to 43% of generation capacity and gas and diesel a combined 8.1%, under the new Integrated Resource Plan.

A study has divided the world into 12 climate zones on the basis of the Köppen–Geiger classification map. The paper confirmed Chile’s Atacama region has the world’s highest solar radiation but also showed the region with the highest performance ratio for PV systems was near Moscow.

Only 530 MW of the 2.97 GW of renewable energy generation capacity contracted in the procurement exercise went to solar. Eleven solar projects were successful and their final electricity prices were far below those offered by competing technologies.

With the 600 MW production line the company’s annual module production capacity will approach 2 GW.