The weekend read: Central Asian solar on the rise
Utility-scale solar is stirring in the region, with support from development banks. Following a series of competitive auctions, PV projects have been commissioned and are under development in Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. In the latter nation, corporate interest in distributed, small-scale renewables is growing but for further market uptake, additional incentives should be introduced, practitioners say.
Euro solar industry on course to support more than 500,000 jobs this year
Poland was the EU’s biggest solar jobs market last year, thanks to a national rooftop incentive program, but Germany’s push to repatriate solar manufacturing will help the bloc’s PV powerhouse back to the number one slot in three years’ time, according to SolarPower Europe.
Solar power costs continued to fall in 2021, despite rising panel prices
The average global price of solar kilowatt-hours fell 13% on 2020’s prices, as around two-thirds of the renewables capacity installed last year was cheaper than the lowest-cost fossil fuel alternative.
Plans for 200 MW of solar in Bangladesh
An initial 30 MW slice of generation capacity, to include agrivoltaics and aquavoltaics, is set to be generating by 2024 according to the Hong Kong-Bangladeshi JV which plans to develop the site.
Seesawing energy prices renew demand for solar in North Africa
Climate change ambitions announced by the governments of Egypt and Morocco are symptomatic of a desire for clean power sites with regional policymakers leaning towards auction-set payments for clean power, according to a recent webinar.
New tool for PV plant design on terrains with complex orography
Spanish engineering company Sener has developed a software that analyzes different combinations of panels, trackers or tables, inverters and storage systems, as well as construction costs, depending on the market situation at any given time and the client’s preferences.
Japan allocates 268.7MW in eleventh solar auction, lowest bid comes in at $0.078/kWh
The procurement exercise was open to PV projects exceeding 250kW in size and had a ceiling price of ¥10.25/kWh ($0.089).
US big solar to fire tracker market to 2025
Data company IHS Markit expects almost nine out of ten big solar projects in the Americas over the next three years to be tracker mounted. More than a terrawatt of new solar will be added from this year to the end of 2025, the analyst predicted.
Large-scale PV could improve voltage of weak grids in Nigeria
Researchers have discovered that large-scale PV arrays could enhance the voltage stability of northern Nigeria’s electricity grid.
Construction reported underway at 1GW of wind, solar, storage projects in Inner Mongolia
Chinese renewables and gas-fired power plant developer Beijing Jingneng Clean Energy Co. announced today that it has commenced work on wind and solar projects in the autonomous region of Inner Mongolia with a combined capacity of 1GW. One of the projects is a combined solar, wind and hydrogen electrolysis project with a generation capacity of 500MW.
