Solar Grids News

Two giants in financing and Indian power are collaborating on a clean energy microgrid operation they claim will deliver power to five million Indian households with 10,000 grids over the next decade.

The latest figures released by BloombergNEF show new solar and onshore wind power plants have reached parity with average wholesale prices in California, China and parts of Europe. The technologies are winning the race to be the cheapest sources of new generation for two-thirds of the world’s population.

The government of the Turks and Caicos Islands, utility FortisTCI and the non-profit Clinton Foundation inked a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on Wednesday to kick off the initiatives in the country’s new energy transition strategy.

The local authority is seeking proposals to build mini-grids with generation capacities of more than 5 kW to power hospitals, markets, water pumping and street lighting. The council has expressed a strong preference for the build, operate and transfer project development model.

Industry body Gogla and the World Bank’s Lighting Global program said the last six months set a record for off-grid solar deployment. Solar home systems and other small off-grid appliances are being used in ever larger numbers.

Enphase’s Q3 results show a company that has turned its fortunes around, with revenues more than doubling and high profitability, but questions remain around growth potential.

Acciona has signed a supply deal with Chilean water utility Empresa Concesionaria de Servicios Sanitarios SA (ECONSSA Chile) that will fulfil the energy needs of a water desalination plant set to come online in the Atacama desert next year.

Japanese trading corporation Mitsui & Co has sold its interest in a 679MW portfolio of operational Canadian wind and solar to Canadian infrastructure management firm Axium.

Luminous Energy has commenced connection works on its 162MWac solar farm in Australia, with the developer eyeing up 1.2GW of works across multiple markets.

Singapore has targeted 2GW of solar by 2030 and 200MW of energy storage beyond 2025, but will continue to rely on natural gas for the next 50 years, according to a government official.

Giving a push to solar power energy, the Punjab State Power Corporation Limited (PSPCL) has floated a tender for empanelment of companies to install 30 MW of grid-connected solar rooftop projects in the range of 1 kw to 1,000 kw.

CleanChoice Energy is introducing town partnerships for its CleanChoice Community Solar offerings. The company’s first Community Solar Partnership is with the Village of Wappingers Falls, where CleanChoice Energy will serve as the town’s preferred provider of community solar, allowing local residents to realize savings while working toward the town’s sustainability goals. Wappingers Falls’ residents can subscribe to CleanChoice Energy’s new portfolio of local community solar farms and save up to 10% on their utility bills.

In racing to provide access to electricity to all its citizens, the government has commissioned extensive coal, gas and nuclear generation capacity and the solar sector fears an ever-expanding national grid will kill the business case for solar in previously off-grid areas.

In this op-ed for pv magazine, Roy Torbert and José Juan Terrasa-Soler, of the Rocky Mountain Institute and Resilient Power Puerto Rico, respectively, analyze the cost of Puerto Rico’s energy recovery and the role that microgrids play in reconstruction and resiliency.

Pittsburgh International Airport (PIT) is planning to be wholly powered by solar power and natural gas microgrid. For the first time in the United States, a major airport will be completely powered by its own microgrid with the use of its own on-site natural gas wells and a solar array.