Solar Plants News

The National Solar Energy Federation of India (NSEFI) is continuing to step up its efforts to ensure the quality of large scale solar projects. The body is now looking for stakeholder input into its new best practice guidelines for PV power plant projects, as a part of its ongoing Quality Taskforce initiative.

Eastern Europe’s largest utility has decided to acquire a minority stake in Zolar – a German provider of digital solutions for rooftop PV – alongside BayWa r.e. Energy Ventures.

The Infrastructure Development Bank of Zimbabwe has issued a request for proposal to seek partners for the development and construction of seven solar parks, with a combined generation capacity of 235 MW, plus two mini-hydro power projects.

The GCL System chief executive made comments that fly in the face of an expected solar gold rush in China that analysts predict will start this month. Though rising overseas demand will address overcapacity fears, according to Luo, the soundbite is sure to chill PV boardrooms across the world’s biggest solar market.

Solarpack has strengthened its foothold on the Peruvian solar market by closing on the full acquisition of two up-and-running plants it deployed seven years ago.

Deal documents have been signed for the Philippines to add a utility-scale solar project towards the southwest, a plant set be deployed by a foreign construction player.

A Republican senator from Maine and a Democratic senator from New Mexico have introduced legislation that aims to slash costs and red tape currently complicating local permitting for distributed renewable energy, energy storage and electric vehicle (EV) charging systems.

The colossal solar boom Italy wants to drive in a decade could lie beyond reach if developers do not act to embrace energy storage more decisively, industry players have argued at a recent event.

SunPower has launched a web application that can design rooftop solar projects in seconds. SunPower’s Design Studio combines SunPowers’s Instant Design technology, Google Cloud and Google Sunroof to deliver customizable residential solar designs that take into account roof size, shading and energy potential. Homeowners can modify their design based on their energy needs, resulting in more accurate predictions of electricity bill and energy savings.

The economics guiding U.S. investments in electricity generation have reached a historic tipping point: combinations of solar, wind, storage, efficiency and demand response are now less expensive than most proposed gas power plant projects. According to a new report by Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI), portfolios of these clean energy resources can provide the same energy and reliability services as traditional gas power plants — but cost less.

Bacolod is expected to host its first large scale PV project within a year after domestic renewables firm Amatera signed a deal with Korean business TPC Construction Corp.

Kyocera’s 13.7 MW floating project at the Yamakura Dam was damaged by 120mph winds the typhoon brought to the coastal city of Chiba. Firefighters said the blaze may have been generated by the strong heat produced by panels stacking up.

Brazil’s biggest lender has launched three tenders to select solar facilities to supply it with power through leasing. The central bank expects to buy around 4 GWh of electricity per year for the Federal District and another 2 GWh in the states of Goiás and Pará.

Canadian Solar, Acciona, Enel, EDF, Solarpack and Trina are among the contenders to develop large scale renewables projects. Some 26 power distributors are participating in the procurement as buyers.

After more than six years of scientific and technical research efforts in the solar sector, the Qatar Environment and Energy Research Institute (QEERI) is now targeting a major role in the industry itself.