Europe

The central Italian province of Viterbo has 1,359 MW of solar generation capacity in the development and approvals process. The mass of projects has raised opposition from some locals and developers are in talks with government officials to discuss how concerns can be addressed.

Poland’s fourth largest energy company, Enea, will build a 30 MW solar plant for the Bogdanka coal mine in which the utility is majority shareholder. The project will sell power to the mine through a long-term supply deal.

A group of scientists at Netherlands based research institute AMOLF have discovered a method for electrochemical printing at the nanoscale. With further optimizations, the group theorizes, the technique could allow for the development of new, three dimensional solar cells.

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.

The Spanish manufacturer said the new three-phase device may reach a power output of 160 kWac in a single 75kg unit. The inverter features 1500 Vdc technology and is said to be able to reach a power output of 161 kW (AC) in a single 75kg unit.

Major PV inverter manufacturer, SolarEdge Technologies is taking its patent infringement case against Huawei Technologies to the Regional Courts of Jinan and Shenzhen in China, after fillings in Germany in June and July 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.

Aberdeen Standard Investments (ASI) has sealed the latest of a raft of solar plays in Poland, purchasing a relatively sizeable portfolio from China’s ReneSola.

Finland’s first roof mounted solar power plant with capacity exceeding 1 MW is currently being built on the roof of Sponda’s Elo Shopping Centre in Ylöjärvi. The project will be completed in November 2019.

Inverter manufacturer Solaredge has filed three additional patent infringement lawsuits against its competitor, Huawei, in China. This comes after three similar legal actions against Huawei that had been undertaken by Solaredge in Germany last summer. While Huawei has decided not to comment on the matter, the Chinese manufacturer revealed that it had filed three patent litigation claims against Solaredge at a Chinese court this May.

An Italian research team has developed a device that it says can easily be integrated into a PV cell, and can boost its efficiency by converting more light particles into a high energy state before they are absorbed by the cell. The scientists claim that their innovation could offer a green‐to‐blue photon upconversion yield as high as 15%.

Solar’s embrace of subsidy-free models could push it in greater numbers towards owners with the experience to navigate power price swings, according to Wood Mackenzie.

Spanish developer Enerside will start construction of a 322.06MW solar park in northeastern Brazil early next year, government officials said over the weekend.

The global solar market is growing rapidly but remains highly fragmented, Wood Mackenzie says.

Originally intended to commission 140 MW of storage, the tender drew three winning projects: a 50 MW system and two 30 MW facilities. Eirgrid has estimated the total value of the contracts at around €6 million per year.