Solar Markets & Finance News

Commercial and industrial (C&I) solar is set for a boost in South Africa, with financial support now lined up for a new pipeline.

The US Trade and Development Agency (USTDA) has agreed to finance a feasibility study for a 150MW hybrid solar, wind and battery plant in northern Zambia.

Newish European-based panel manufacturer FreeVolt has entered into a partnership with California-headquartered energy management company Apparent. FreeVolt’s U.S. installation division FreeVolt USA will team with Apparent to provide solar-plus-storage systems to California homeowners and C&I customers.

Since the beginning of August the Flemish government has granted a €250/kWh rebate for the purchase of domestic batteries. The program is set to run until the end of next year.

The German lender has issued a winding up petition over a $6.27 million debt and could scupper the manufacturer’s plans to restructure its defaulted payments and be taken over by a Chinese state-backed entity.

A dispute holding up a solar project backlog of nearly 600MW in Michigan is now one step closer to resolution, under a truce brokered with the help of industry representatives.

San Jose Clean Energy (SJCE) and EDP Renewables SA (EDPR), through its fully owned subsidiary EDP Renewables North America, signed a 20-year power purchase agreement for 100 megawatts of new solar energy and 10 MW of battery storage at the Sonrisa Solar Park in Fresno County, California. The project is anticipated to be operational in 2022.

A mixture of development support, market economics and awareness programmes have propelled Papua New Guinea to the forefront of global off-grid solar, according to a new report.

For the second half of the year, the German inverter producer expects a significant increase in revenues and earnings, mainly due to high order intake. It also confirmed its forecast for the full fiscal year, despite declining sales and sales in the first six months of 2019.

Daqo New Energy has agreed to supply 112,800 MT of polysilicon to Longi Green Energy Technology. The two parties did not disclose the financial terms of the three-year deal.

Portugal has unveiled the final results of the solar auction held over the summer, identifying a handful of major foreign winners of a tender hailed as a worldwide milestone.

Pestech, a Malaysia-based electrical power technology company, has entered into a partnership with Chinese inverter maker Sungrow to jointly develop new floating solar solutions.

Earlier this week, the French government published a list of winning projects for the sixth round of its tender for large-scale solar. There were a few changes from the preceding round, with French companies such as Urbasolar, Engie and Total consolidating their positions. However, even though a higher number of projects were submitted, prices increased slightly in the end. In a short conversation with pv magazine, Xavier Daval — a representative of SER, the French renewable energy association — explained the reasons for this.

One of Spain’s largest banks has gotten behind a utility-scale solar portfolio, planned without support from auctions nor power purchase agreements (PPAs).

Of the 38 new renewable energy projects that have been awarded, 13 are PV plants, representing 96.75 MW of capacity. The average price for solar was $57.58/MWh, and the minimum was $54.22/MWh.