Rooftop PV

Researchers have developed a high-resolution geospatial method of assessing the solar potential of all buildings in the EU and concluded rooftop PV could provide a quarter of the bloc’s electricity needs. The scientists say grid parity for rooftop solar has been reached outside eastern member states with cheap fossil fuel electricity.

The e-commerce group will invest an undisclosed sum in a 45 MW solar array in the U.S. state of Virginia. It also plans to invest in a 23.2 MW wind farm in Ireland.

The startup formerly known as GE Solar has become a full fledged company, with GE and BlackRock announcing the creation of Distributed Solar Development, a behind-the-meter solar joint venture.

After several year of stalled and failed projects, Zimbabwe’s government is now seeking to implement existing projects, and to get rid of licensed projects that have never been realized. The first attempt will be pushing forward the 100 MW Gwanda solar project, which had been awarded to Intratek in 2015. The government is further planning to grant incentives to rooftop PV under net metering.

The procurements relate to self-consumption projects with a generation capacity of 100 kW-1 MW. The next tender will be launched in September and will allocate 25 MW of solar capacity. The tenders had been suspended because of low interest and disproportionately high final tariffs for surplus power injected into the grid.

Two reports have concluded rooftop solar may replace PV parks as the main growth driver in the two big Asian markets over the next decade. Support programs for utility scale PV in both countries no longer seem attractive enough.

By providing solar-plus-storage, contracting to supply capacity in wholesale markets and even considering microgrid communities, Sunrun is taking on more of the space traditionally occupied by utilities and large, centralized power generators.

New PV installations under the nation’s net metering scheme grew 137% year-on-year from January to March, according to consultancy Greener, and module imports registered even greater growth, signalling activity in the distributed generation segment is increasing at a faster pace. With the regulator mooting changes to the net metering regime, however, it may reflect customers rushing to secure current tariffs.

The Solarville project, by Ikea’s Danish research and design laboratory, has seen the participation of blockchain companies such as Bloc, Blocktech, WeMoveIdeas India and Temporal. It was conceived to help create cooperative community micro-grids to enable homeowners to become clean energy traders.