Energy

Average spot polysilicon price has crossed below the $8/kg threshold for the first time, according to PVInsights. Market analyst Johannes Bernreuter said, however, that the industry should not read too much into $8/kg as a historical threshold and that prices may rise again in September, driven by strong demand in the Chinese market.

The country’s agency for rural electrification is seeking proposals for a 1.3 MW solar project and a 1.5 MW/2 MWh storage system.

The Dubai Water and Electricity Authority will use energy from the gigawatt-scale Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park to provide a new hydropower plant with pumped storage capacity. The state-owned utility has announced a number of innovations for the project in recent months, including plans for hydrogen and large-scale storage capacity.

The 20 MW plant will feature 62,750 solar panels. Installer Perpetum Energy plans to commission the project in the spring of 2020.

The power company has launched three procurement auctions for a total of 2.9 GW of power generation capacity. Renewable energy companies are among the bidders to have expressed interest in providing electricity.

MIT researchers say climate change could reduce the yield of solar modules. Analysis based on the warming scenarios outlined by the IPCC predicts in some areas the annual energy output of PV systems may fall by up to 50 kWh per kilowatt installed.

Railway operators can now feasibly connect solar plants to traction substations, claims a consortium that is now working on a similar demonstration project in the U.K. Almost all of the 30 kW installation’s output will be used to move trains, but in the future storage could come into the picture for larger “railway-connected” solar power projects, says 10:10, the U.K.-based climate change charity that developed the pilot.

Australia’s Northern Territory has given major project status to an ambitious plan to develop a 10 GW solar farm coupled with a 20-30 GWh storage facility near Tennant Creek and export solar power harvested in the Australian desert to Singapore via subsea cables.

Analysts have scrutinized the result of the recent A-4 auction which delivered, in theory, the world’s lowest price for solar electricity from an energy procurement exercise. The two plants in question, however, will sell 70% and 50% of their output outside the power deal signed in the auction.

Interview: The Energy Charts, developed by the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems (ISE) shows that the switch from coal to gas in Germany reduced CO2 emissions by one third in June. In a European wide transition, Eurogas General Secretary James Watson considers reductions of up to 45% possible by 2030. The gas sector is also willing to make the transition to renewables and decarbonised gases by the middle of the century. In the case of power-to-gas technologies, medium-term cost reductions which are comparable to the experience curve of photovoltaics is possible, Watson explained.