pandemic

A study into the potential pitfalls of the shift to clean power in the nation’s coal-dependent energy mix, pointed out almost all of South Africa’s solar farms are far to the south and west of the coal regions likely to bear the brunt of job losses in a country which already has 29% unemployment.

The Chinese solar manufacturer shipped 4.46 GW of modules for turnover of $1.2 billion from April to June and expects to move 20 GW of panels this year.

With the Japanese conglomerate this week walking away from two new nuclear plants in the United Kingdom, project developer Horizon Nuclear Power has confirmed all activities at both sites will cease. The facilities had struggled to secure funding despite offers from government. Horizon said it will ‘keep lines of communication open’ regarding the future of the sites.

The poly manufacturer discussed the impact of Covid-19 on its solar and wind project development business and fleshed out details of global polysilicon oversupply during a pandemic-hit first half of the year.

Clean energy power plants will figure prominently as Queensland and Victoria bid to reset their economies for a post-coronavirus world. France suffered a hit to its new solar deployment figures in the first half of a Covid-hit year but its neighbor appears to have no such concerns.

The annual EU PVSEC conference got under way virtually this morning via an online platform since the planned event in Lisbon could not go ahead due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Opening presentations revealed an air of optimism in the PV industry, amid expectations of a rapidly rising share in the energy mix, growing conversion efficiencies, advancing technology pathways and innovative solutions to the problem of integrating high levels of PV into electricity grids.

Plus, analyst WoodMac says a fall in the cost of power generation in Japan during the public health crisis will help drive renewables investment and the Indian government has relaxed borrowing rules for its financially crippled electric utilities.

Negative second-quarter updates from China and uber-low new-solar figures from India, however, show the world is far from out of the woods yet.

Grid scale lith-ion batteries may be multiplying Stateside, but an expected recovery in the production line segment will be put on hold until next year because of the pandemic, according to one analyst.

Swedish start-up Azelio says it will have a pilot project up and running in Masdar City by the end of next month. The technology sees electricity used to super heat aluminum with energy released on demand via a heat transfer fluid to drive a Stirling engine.