UK

Southern Water has issued a request for information about sourcing solar power through bilateral power purchase agreements. The company is considering buying electricity from generation facilities on its sites in southern England.

The U.K. government was the first major economy in the world to pass laws to end its contribution to global warming by 2050. But to achieve this ambition is going to take some major changes – not least of which to the U.K.’s power network.

The French energy giant will provide supermarket Tesco with electricity from 17 rooftop PV installations and two wind farms for a renewables portfolio generation capacity of 59 MW. The groceries retailer has announced plans to install 187 solar rooftops.

U.K.-based Tribus and PS Renewables are seeking environmental approval to build the country’s largest PV facility across two sites in Suffolk and Cambridgeshire. The Sunnica Energy Farm will also include large-scale storage capacity at both facilities.

Two new reports from BloombergNEF recommend that the two northern European countries should implement policies to accelerate the adoption of energy storage and smart electric vehicle charging, while also improving demand response and interconnection to Nordic hydropower reservoirs. All of these actions are expected to further reduce fossil fuel dependence and add flexibility to their respective energy markets.

The British wafer manufacturer has reached a settlement agreement on unfulfilled long-term wafer supply contracts with a customer. The unnamed manufacturer has to pay €28.8 million to PV Crystalox.

Despite a remarkable cumulative PV capacity of over 12.8 GW, newly registered PV systems in the first four months of this year amounted to a disappointing 72 MW. The U.K. Solar Trade Association does not expect the current poor growth trend to improve unless the government provides more regulatory certainty.

The governments of the U.K. and India have announced a new green fund, managed by Lightsource BP and the Everstone Group, which will see up to £500 million invested in green energy in India. The U.K. has also joined the Indian-led International Solar Alliance (ISA).

The 2.7 MW installation will be located at the luxury car maker’s factory headquarters in Crewe, England, and will meet 24% of the site’s electrical energy requirements.

Rise in small scale solar contributing towards new trend of falling summertime peak transmission system demand on U.K. grid, says outlook report. Inflexibile gas and nuclear plants may be curtailed to make way for solar and wind.