hydropower

The renewables business is set to acquire the SN Power hydropower operator belonging to Norwegian state-owned private equity business Norfund, with the $1.17 billion deal expected to go through in the first half of the new year. Scatec said the transaction could offer floating solar opportunities.

The U.S. based researchers said linking solar with hydro in a full hybrid system configuration may result – at best – in the deployment of 7,593 GW for an estimated annual power generation of 10,616 TWh and a 20% reservoir coverage. And combining solar with hydro in this way brings further benefits, including improved system operation at different time scales, more opportunities for storage thanks to pumped hydro, increased utilization rates of transmission lines, reduced PV curtailment, and lower interconnection costs and water evaporation.

In a national park in Chile, a hydropower plant has been combined with a solar system and battery storage to replace diesel generation.

Brazil now has 12  GW of underperforming hydropower capacity, according to U.S. researchers. Large-scale floating PV is an ideal solution to offset this shortfall, due to its high capacity factor, load correlation, and high potential output during periods of high demand.

Korporata Elektroenergjetike Shqiptare began development of the €13.9 million facility in December 2018. The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development is considering lending €9.5 million to a project which it is said would help reduce the electric company’s reliance on hydro revenues.

The country’s National Irrigation Administration will bet on floating PV and solar-powered irrigation to improve water and energy supply. The Pantabangan and Casecnan dams, in the province of Nueva Ecija in the Central Luzon region, have been identified as ideal locations for floating solar.

The president of the Caribbean island has announced several ground-mounted PV plants will be tendered, along with 60 MW of thermal power generation capacity. The projects are part of a plan to provide the nation with universal access to electricity during Jovenel Moïse’s five-year term in office.

Tractebel will develop the basic design of three floating PV projects at the 52.2 MW Batalha hydropower project, which is owned by Brazilian state-run power company Eletrobras Furnas.

The combination of pumped hydro with other storage technologies can increase renewables penetration, improve operational safety and reduce maintenance costs at large-scale hydropower plants, according to new research. The study also focuses on techniques to determine the optimal size of renewables-based pumped hydro storage systems. Costs for hybrid solar-pumped hydro projects currently range from $0.098/kWh to $1.36/kWh.

The United Nations Development Program is seeking consultants to build a 2 MW solar project and three hydropower plants ranging in generation capacity from 1.15-2 MW.