PPAs

The energy transition is becoming ever more apparent among power companies, as was evident at the European Utility Week event last week in Paris, which showcased the hopes and fears of energy companies. Rebranding next year to ‘Enlit’, the organizers aim to reach the whole energy industry.

Officials in Dhaka frustrated by the lack of progress on several PV projects have decided to punish tardy developers by setting new power prices which reflect the falling costs of solar project development.

Two solar farms with 80 MW of generation capacity tendered in 2017 are being built and will be commissioned this year but another two, allocated at the same time, are no nearer construction. Kenya, however, has been touted as the site of Africa’s first wind-solar-storage hybrid project.

The Lone Star State accounted for almost half of the activity witnessed in the world’s biggest corporate clean energy marketplace but analysts are excited about the prospect of Beijing mandating companies to purchase minimum levels of green electricity.

In July 2016 Nigeria signed power purchase agreements with 14 utility scale PV projects with a total generation capacity of 1,075 MW. None of the projects has reached financial close and pv magazine has learned the government wants to reduce the agreed tariffs.

The energy transition is accelerating, Ernst & Young global energy leader Benoit Laclau has warned grid operators, thanks to the confluence of digitization, decentralization and decarbonization. Traditional utilities must get with the program or be swept aside.

The Solar Market Parity Italy 2019 event organized by Solarplaza in Milan last week gave an insight into the Italian large scale PV market by forecasting the trajectory of the segment and highlighting issues investors and developers may encounter.

A representative of South Africa’s energy regulator said deals signed between 2011 and 2013 must be subject to lower tariffs to ease the financial crisis at national utility Eskom. The suggestion failed to convince delegates at an Africa Energy Forum panel discussion in Lisbon, however.

More and more corporations are signing contracts with wind and solar projects, and as this happens the space is becoming broader and more complex.

The Indian power ministry has released notice preventing any renegotiation of signed PPAs in the solar PV sector, calculated at a potential $7.5bn worth of solar projects.