Renewables

The World Bank has agreed to finance part of a project owned by Indonesian state-owned utility, PLN. The facility is planned to enable a larger penetration of renewable energy to provide with power two large demand centers in West Java.

With the Dabdaba/Al-Dibdibah solar field now having been combined with the Shagaya clean energy development, bids for the former’s EPC contract were reportedly received last week. It is unclear whether the facility will have a generation capacity of 1 GW, 1.5 GW or ‘up to 3 GW.’

With land-use concerns on the rise, large-scale solar projects are increasingly being built on everything from landfill sites to water reservoirs. Here’s an overview of the state of the art.

The project will be built in Brăila county, southern Romania, at a cost of approximately $42.6 million. Hidroelectrica also wants to build several floating solar plants, totaling 5 MW, at some of its hydropower facilities.

A Norwegian consortium led by Scatec is planning to build a hybrid hydropower-floating PV plant at an unspecified location in West Africa. Building both facilities simultaneously will help its developers define a series of parameters for proper sizing, optimization and design, and set a benchmark for future projects of this kind.

Modules account for a huge percentage of a project’s total costs, and given that independent power providers have lower margins in the Indian solar energy sector, even a small increase in module pricing can put them under more strain.

Since July 2020, SA Power Networks has been refining technology and stakeholder engagement mechanisms to enable dynamic solar exports to the grid, potentially ending an era of severe export limits on new customers in rooftop-solar-rich parts of the South Australian network and other jurisdictions.

Enertrage and Sunfire want to build an electrolysis test field in eastern Germany and Hyzon Motors sold 500 hydrogen-powered electric trucks to Shanghai Hydrogen HongYun Automotive. Moreover, several partnership agreements were announced in Malaysia, Japan, the US, Australia and South Korea.

Now in its 38th year, and its second as a fully virtual event, the 2021 EU PVSEC conference revealed a solar industry and research community filled with confidence. Discussions at the event began with the expectation that demand for solar will continue to grow rapidly, and focused on the challenges of further scaling up production and deployment, and ensuring that energy systems can run smoothly with solar and wind as their main source of energy.

Italy’s richest and most dynamic region continues to support solar+storage installations with rebates.