Wind Power

Two solar farms with 80 MW of generation capacity tendered in 2017 are being built and will be commissioned this year but another two, allocated at the same time, are no nearer construction. Kenya, however, has been touted as the site of Africa’s first wind-solar-storage hybrid project.

In the latest installment of pv magazine’s renewable energy and geopolitics series, Indra Overland says a new mindset is necessary to understand the geopolitics ahead as the rules of the fossil fuel era will no longer apply. A renewable world will have fewer strategic locations and bottlenecks and less territorial competition.

The energy company will build a 38 MW solar, 22 MW wind and 12 MW battery project on one site. The first fully renewable hybrid power plant could be a blueprint for post-subsidy Germany. Vattenfall has an eye on German coalfields in particular.

Analysts have scrutinized the result of the recent A-4 auction which delivered, in theory, the world’s lowest price for solar electricity from an energy procurement exercise. The two plants in question, however, will sell 70% and 50% of their output outside the power deal signed in the auction.

A floating solar array will be located in the North Sea near an aquaculture and an offshore wind power facility. The €2 million pilot project is being developed by a consortium including Tractebel, Jan De Nul Group, Deme, Soltech and Ghent University.

Using an application based on resource data and country-specific techno-economic inputs, a report has analyzed the costs of developing utility scale renewables in Southeast Asia and found abundant, cost-competitive potential.

Though PV will remain in the shadow of wind and hydropower in the north of Europe, an ambitious solar deployment scenario in Sweden could lift the market into the gigawatt club through to 2040.

Amid the hubbub surrounding India’s renewable energy ambitions, few people have likely heard the last wails of a critically endangered great Indian bustard as it chars to death on a power transmission line or fatally collides with a wind turbine.

The financial terms of the plan were not revealed. Valeco currently owns and operates 332 MW of renewable energy assets in France.

The utility could invest up to €7 billion in renewable energy projects up to 2022.