Russia

Two Russian missiles have hit a ground-mounted solar plant near Kharkiv, Ukraine. According to the manager of the plant, the missile attacks produced holes at the site that measured 6 meters deep and 11 meters in diameter.

Indra Overland, the head of the Center for Energy Research at the Norwegian Institute for International Affairs, tells pv magazine how the Ukraine war is irreversibly changing the global energy landscape, making massive renewables deployment a certainty. But labor issues, equipment shortages, and reliance on Chinese manufacturing remain obstacles.

The International Energy Agency today published a 10-point plan for Europe to reduce its reliance on natural gas imported from Russia. The plan would see Russian gas imports to EU member states reduced by one third within a year, and notes that further reductions within this timeframe would come with significant tradeoffs, likely to impact both energy prices and Europe’s Green Deal. The plan was presented by Fatih Birol, executive director of the IEA, in a virtual press conference held earlier today.

Most of the deployed capacity comes from utility scale solar plants selected in the country’s tender scheme for renewables.

The solar array will cover around 30% of the electricity needs of a Leroy Merlin hypermarket in Volzhsky, in Russia’s Volgograd region.

This week, Russia joined forces with the United Arab Emirates to develop common hydrogen projects and similar moves were made by Chile and South Korea, Japan and Australia, as well as by France and Germany. French President Emmanuel Macron announced €2 billion in new investments.

Unigreen Energy plans to open a 1.3 GW, vertically integrated factory in the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad on the Baltic Sea. Initially, the facility will have an annual module production capacity of around 500 MW.

In the procurement exercise, the Russian energy regulator allocated 775 MW of PV capacity, 1,851 MW of wind power, and 96 MW of hydropower capacity. The auction concluded with an average price of RUB 5.18 ($0.070)/kWh.

Russian energy giant said its gigafactory will be located in Russia’s western exclave of Kaliningrad. The facility is expected to begin manufacturing activities in 2026.

The facility is located on an area of an oil refinery comprising 17 unused sites.