Renewable Energy

News statistics from South African utility Eskom show that the country added 1.82 GW of new distributed-generation PV capacity in the first six months of this year. However, PV analyst Chris Ahlfedlt warns that the published numbers could also include some utility-scale projects.

JSW Energy says it plans to set up a green hydrogen plant with an annual capacity of 3,800 tons to supply steel to JSW Steel, driven by 25 MW of renewable energy.

The completion of a new 1.5 MW solar farm has brought Tasmania’s King Island closer to achieving a permanent shift to 100% renewable energy.

Romania is resuming the development of the Tarniţa Lăpuşteşti pumped hydro storage project, with a planned capacity of 500 MW to 1 GW. It will be the first installation of its kind in the country.

A new process is described as a tool to assess the value of deferring, relocating, or abandoning PV projects under development in uncertain market conditions. It reportedly allows accommodating different sources of uncertainties with different stochastic features, as well as accounting for the various managerial flexibilities embedded in most solar projects.

Massimo Albino Russo, head of business development for Enerqos Energy Solutions, recently spoke with pv magazine Italy about its smart O&M service to detect dysfunctions in solar arrays hit by hail. The Ameresco Group subsidiary uses drones and artificial intelligence to deal with PV system damage.

NTPC Renewable Energy Ltd. (NTPC REL) has secured a letter of award from REC Power Development and Consultancy (RECPDCL) to develop a 550 MW solar project. It won it at a tariff of INR 2.56 ($0.031)/kWh through competitive bidding in the RECPDCL auction.

NextEra, the leading clean energy developer in the United States, has deployed nearly 1.9 GW (AC) of solar, wind and storage over the past quarter, expanding its project backlog to nearly 20 GW. It has also secured interconnection queue positions for 145 GW of its projects.

The National Energy Regulator of South Africa (NERSA) is moving forward with plans to split Eskom into three separate entities. NERSA has granted the National Transmission Company of South Africa the authority to function independently from Eskom, while South Africa’s National Treasury is working on a bill to address the troubled national utility’s ZAR 423 billion ($23 billion) debt burden.

Kostt, Kosovo’s market operator, has launched a tender for the construction of a 100 MW solar plant. It will offer a 15-year power purchase agreement (PPA) to the selected developer.