Solar Commercial Plants News

Australian renewables developer Windlab has connected and energized its landmark energy park in northern Queensland, comprising 43 MW of wind, 18 MW of solar and a 4 MWh battery.

The projects will be tendered under single-round competitive bidding processes, supervised by the European Bank for Development and Reconstruction.

The average price guaranteed to the winners of the tender’s sixth window is €64/MWh. For installations above 5 MW, the price is €59.5/MWh, which is higher than the fifth window.

A consortium led by Jinko Power and Korea Electric Power Corp., as well as another group led by Japanese conglomerate Marubeni and French energy group Total, have submitted bids for Qatar’s 700 MW solar tender. The final results will be announced in September.

A consortium led by Metito Utilities, JinkoSolar and Al Jomaih Energy and Water has won a tender to build a 45-55 MW grid-tied solar plant with a bid of $0.0749/kWh — the lowest ever seen in Bangladesh.

UNSW Sydney has announced the looming completion of the Sunraysia Solar Farm in Australia. The university is now on track to run on 100% renewable energy from 2020, as the massive 255 MW project will be operational by the end of this year, with 25% of its generation to be purchased by UNSW.

Railway operators can now feasibly connect solar plants to traction substations, claims a consortium that is now working on a similar demonstration project in the U.K. Almost all of the 30 kW installation’s output will be used to move trains, but in the future storage could come into the picture for larger “railway-connected” solar power projects, says 10:10, the U.K.-based climate change charity that developed the pilot.

Jair Bolsonaro has given the green light to a new solar scheme in Brazil’s northeast, marking its launch as he attended the opening of a separate floating project.

Energy provider New Jersey Resources (NJR) is selling US$150 million of green bonds to finance six commercial solar plants with a combined capacity of 50MW.

The cancellation of an 80-megawatt project with no financial penalty raises questions about a monopoly utility competing against private developers.

Supported by an innovative portfolio contract with its power purchasers, Ormat Technologies has now started commercial operations of its innovative hybrid solar-geothermal power plant at Tungsten Mountain, Nevada.

The €29.7 million financing package was awarded by Banco Sabadell. Renovalia’s 79.2 MW solar park will be Spain’s first PV facility to sell all of its output on the spot market.

U.K. solar developer Lightsource BP plans to host a community information event in the town of Mannum, South Australia, to outline a proposal to fund, build and operate a 100 MW solar project.

The Shapoorji Pallonji Group’s solar EPC business will hit the capital markets with an initial public offering on Aug. 6.

PV technology has made significant progress in a short amount of time, leaving solar enthusiasts chuffed. Opponents, on the other hand, brand it as unworkable boondoggle, surviving on the crutches of subsidies and only salving the conscience of the green-minded companies cosseted by political forces. The naysayers do have partial truth in their argument - governments the world over have been supporting the growth of this child with the moniker “solar” with public finances. So, this is the partial truth and the enthusiasts have just enough firepower to say that all energy is, after all, subsidised one way or another – in terms of uncompensated costs of air pollution, congestion and global warming and the consequential irreversible damage these fossil fuels have done to the planet. Perhaps more important and statistically relevant is a report published by the IMF in 2015, which had pegged subsidies to fossil fuels at US$5.3 trillion.