lockdowns

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.

Emissions permits are selling at around €50 per ton, completing a rally from last year’s Covid-driven slump faster than expected by business respondents to the 2021 Refinitiv Carbon Market Survey.

While solar, wind and hydro generated 80 TWh more electricity last year than in 2019, coal and oil use fell in every EU member state, and Greek energy emissions fell almost 19%.

More than 7% of the U.K.’s solar generation capacity is now unsubsidized, according to trade body Solar Energy UK, with the nation reaching more than 14 GW of photovoltaic projects during the first three months of the year.

Patrik Huber, co-founder and managing director for East Africa at renewables leasing company Solarise Africa, has spoken to pv magazine about the company’s take on how the region can prime for a green recovery. Huber explained Solarise’s contribution to the recovery includes recent expansion into three new countries.

European renewables, including Spanish solar, made big gains as energy demand recovered before the second wave of Covid infections. Nuclear was a notable loser, in part because clean energy volumes in the north of the continent drove down power prices sufficiently to make reactors uncompetitive.

The latest edition of the Global Off-grid Solar Market Report by the World Bank and GOGLA has called for regulatory and financial support to help off-grid distributors create jobs lost to the Covid-19 pandemic.

With a previous 50-50 split between equity and debt investment funding for the off-grid market lurching to 84% borrowing, and commentators stating most of this year’s backing was agreed before the onset of Covid-19, fears are mounting about the prospects for the sector.

Analysts appear divided on the effects the public health crisis will have on the EV market even as sales of petrol-engined SUVs soar in China. And Portugal is plowing on with its Covid-delayed national solar tender, an exercise which may help establish whether clean energy thinktank Ieefa is right to predict PV prices will continue to fall.

EV sales are set to be 1.7 million off because of the economic fallout of the Covid-19 crisis, however analyst BloombergNEF predicts that will be less of a hit than the anticipated fall in sales of conventional cars, increasing the penetration of electric models into the overall market.