utility-scale solar

The rooftop segment maintained strong growth but utility scale PV saw a slowdown on previous months. In the first four months of 2020, newly deployed PV systems added up to 1,479.5 MW of generation capacity, compared with around 1.6 GW in the same period of last year. The nation’s cumulative PV capacity hit 50.46 GW at the end of April.

The International Energy Agency has acknowledged dramatic falls in energy investment caused by the Covid-19 crisis but said renewables, including PV, offered an attractive proposition to investors as the dust settled, given their enticing economics and short turnaround times.

The technology makes up almost 70% of planned clean energy generation capacity in a nation which added just 4 MW of solar last year.

The US National Renewable Energy Laboratory examined five-year data to observe the most common system failure points and how to prevent them. Researchers considered residential, commercial and utility scale plants and found interesting results. While failures cannot be avoided completely, a key takeaway was that close monitoring and timely repair can effectively mitigate the financial effects of failures.

Complexul Energetic Oltenia, a Romanian coal-fired power producer, plans to build 310 MW of PV capacity across four sites at one of its facilities. The projects are part of the company’s restructuring efforts and decarbonization plan.

Solar deployment continued to pick up in the Middle East and North Africa in 2019, the Middle East Solar Industry Association has said in its annual report.

A Department of Energy agency expects 17.4 GW (DC) of utility scale solar power generation capacity plus 6.6 GW of small scale PV will be installed in 2020. That volume would be 60% higher than the record, set in 2016.

The cataclysmic bushfire season ravaging the nation is a reminder of the risk climate change poses to Australia’s economic and social prosperity. An international roadmap to freedom from fossil fuels by 2050 produced by the U.S.’ Stanford University says Australia needs another 280 GW of solar and tens of billions of dollars of investment to turn down the heat.

Over the last decade, DuPont has surveyed more than 2 GW of PV installations and has analyzed a range of failure types and their causes. Hong-Jie Hu, DuPont’s solar technical and development lead in China, says that the materials giant is looking for Australian partners for its Global Field Survey program, with a particular interest in hot and humid and desert environments.

Tuscia, in the Lazio region, is the focus of plans for several big solar parks including a 150 MW project approved by the regional government, two schemes exceeding 100 MW and six more projects ranging in size from 17 to 70 MW. Some 700 MW of solar is under development in the municipalities of Montalto di Castro and Tuscania alone.