Solar Markets & Finance News

PEG Africa, a company offering pay-as-you-go solar to consumers and businesses in West Africa has received a $5 million investment from European Union initiative ElectriFi. The company says it has now secured more than $50 million and plans a major expansion.

A consortium of European research institutes has received €10.6 million in EU funding to establish pilot production of a high efficiency module concept developed by Swiss startup Insolight. The module combines high efficiency multijunction cells with a solar concentrator lens and has previously demonstrated 29% efficiency.

Renewables firm BayWa r.e. looks set to bolster its digital technology services offering with the acquisition of Toronto-based PowerHub.

The Hong Kong manufacturer is holding out hope a boom that is expected to start imminently will help it turnaround losses that forced it to issue a profit warning last week. Getting its new production line in Qujing up to speed will help, provided the demand materializes.

Already active through subsidiary Fenix International and start-up Engie PowerCorner, the French energy giant is expanding further by acquiring Mobisol, an off-grid systems specialist with operations in Kenya, Tanzania and Rwanda.

The tender produced lower bids than previous rounds but again allocated less generation capacity than planned. The Japanese government initially accepted bids for a combined 589.9 MW but ended up assigning only 195.8 MW of capacity. The final average price for procured solar power was $0.1222/kWh.

The embattled solar manufacturer – which is facing a winding-up petition lodged by Deutsche Bank Hong Kong – says it failed to publish the six-month update by the weekend because of a delay in producing its annual results for last year.

Leading monocrystalline wafer producer and ‘Solar Module Super League’ (SMSL) member LONGi Green Energy Technology (LONGi Group) has reported second quarter 2019 revenue of approximately US$1.17 billion, a new quarterly record, due to monocrystalline wafer shipments increasing by 183% in the first half of 2019, compared to the prior year period.

The US Solar Fund (USF) has closed on both the acquisition and financing of 100% of the cash equity interests in the 128MW Milford Solar Project, located in Beaver County, Utah.

The SMSL reported second-quarter PV module shipments of 3,386MW, an increase of 11.5% from 3,037MW in the first quarter of 2019 and an increase of 21.2% from 2,794MW in the second quarter of 2018.

Solar winners of the first Brazilian A-6 auction ever to admit PV bids will be offered 20-year supply deals with the government, newly-released official documents show.

Greece’s prime minister visited the German chancellor yesterday in Berlin and reached an agreement to set up an investment strategy that encompasses renewable energy.

The nation’s Ministry of Energy and Water is seeking developers for a plant on an industrial park at the center of a previous 40 MW procurement exercise.

The Shanghai-based solar manufacturer has maintained gross margin in a depressed domestic market by shipping ever more modules around the world and is pressing ahead with dramatic production plans on the eve of a looming solar boom.

Another large scale transaction by the electricity and gas supplier has enhanced its standing in the U.K. energy market, with the business now counting more than one million customers.