Solar Markets & Finance News

The Australian Renewable Energy Agency and the governments of New South Wales and South Australia, grid operator Ausgrid and insurer NRMA, have awarded almost AU$500,000 to e-mobility start-up Evenergi to help businesses and consumers plan for the electric vehicle revolution.

Dutch system operator TenneT has announced that it will invest €215 million (US$237 million) to accommodate 2GW of solar and wind capacity towards the country's north.

The European Union’s executive arm has approved a major ownership shake-up of Spanish developer X-Elio Energy, giving Brookfield Asset Management the green light to purchase a 20% stake from Acek Renewables alongside a 30% tranche from US infrastructure fund KKR.

Expert warnings that India will be falling short of its renewable deployment targets have sparked a strong-worded rebuke from the government, which has slammed them as “ill-founded”

Reden Investments Chile and Natixis have successfully closed senior facilities totaling US$96.4 million for an up-to-100MW portfolio of PV projects in Chile.

A report by Indian ratings agency CRISIL points to a rising rate of tender failures, an inconsistent policy approach from central and state governments and restrictive solar energy tariff caps and says India could have just 104 GW of renewables capacity by 2022.

UN money will help South African PV players underpin project revenues without the need to resort to the government, after a year when Eskom’s woes have cast doubts on the state-offtaker route.

The rising solar appetites of global investors so far in 2019 have put the industry on course to reach full-year financing volumes unseen since 2017, according to Mercom.

US assistant secretary of state for energy Francis Fannon says Indian solar developers should put quality, service and diplomacy above one-time expenditure.

Although the Wiki-solar website ranking only gives a snapshot of PV project engineering, procurement and construction contracts outside China, it is nevertheless a useful indicator of the changing shape of the global solar market.

The decreasing costs of solar and wind energy could generate $71 billion in stranded coal assets in Japan by 2025, according to a new report from the Carbon Tracker Initiative, a financial think tank, and the University of Tokyo. Offshore wind power will be cheaper than coal in Japan by 2022, new solar cheaper by 2023, and onshore wind less expensive by 2025.

Total corporate funding in the solar sector (including venture capital/private equity, public market, and debt financing) for the first nine months of 2019 was up with $9 billion raised, compared to $6.7 billion in for the same time period in 2018, a 34% increase year-over-year.

The final average price for power generated by solar systems with a capacity of 100-500 kW came in at €97.48/MWh. The price for 500 kW-8 MW installations was €86.54/MWh. Only the latter category saw a fall in price compared to the previous commercial solar tender.

Fundraising activity for solar leaped in the July-to-September period to provide healthy quarterly and year-so-far comparisons on 2018.

X-Elio has enlisted a Portuguese oil and gas group as offtaker to a large-scale solar pipeline in Spain, adding to the country’s bustling PV power purchase agreement (PPA) scene.