Solar Plants 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.

Ralphs, a subsidiary of The Kroger Company, announced the installation of a 2-MWac PV solar array at its automated distribution center in Paramount, California, a 555,000-sq-ft building that provides products to 190 Ralphs stores and 95 Food 4 Less stores throughout Southern California.

Design-build company NORESCO has broken ground for a 1.5-MW solar carport at Keesler Air Force Base (AFB) in Mississippi, part of a $32.7 million guaranteed energy savings performance contract (ESPC).

The energy company will build a 38 MW solar, 22 MW wind and 12 MW battery project on one site. The first fully renewable hybrid power plant could be a blueprint for post-subsidy Germany. Vattenfall has an eye on German coalfields in particular.

The cumulative capacity of 5 MW-or-smaller solar systems has reached 958 MW in Brazil, according to consultancy Greener. Around a third of that capacity was installed in the first half of this year, with projects relying on half-cell and PERC modules making up the largest share.

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.

The Rural Areas Electricity Company wants to build hybrid plants in 11 non-interconnected areas of the sultanate. The projects will have a total of 48 MW of solar power generation capacity and 70 MW of diesel and the storage component will have total installed power of 28 MW and a storage capacity of 14 MWh.

German EPC Ib vogt has started construction on a utility-scale project in Australia’s New South Wales (NSW).

Sonnedix has marked the launch of construction works for a large-scale solar installation in Chile’s Atacama desert, with a view to power up the plant late next year.

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.

The UK’s post-subsidy large-scale solar pipeline has swelled to more than 5GW after a flurry of activity in the first half of 2019.

Electricity produced from commercial and industrial solar energy systems is now cheaper in Chinese cities than that supplied by the national grid.

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.

This new development has brought the country’s cumulative installed solar capacity to more than 9.5 GW. Around 91.5% of the newly installed capacity is represented by PV systems below 1 MW in size.