Queensland scraps tariff in favour of voluntary retail rates

Thursday, 5.22.2014 - 13:59 (PV-Tech)

The second largest state in Australia, Queensland is to ditch its feed-in-tariff (FiT) for some of its PV users, and replace it with voluntary retailer rates. Read more

Barker: Large-scale solar review is ‘calm and measured’

Thursday, 5.22.2014 - 17:47 (Solarpowerportal)

The UK government’s review of support for large-scale solar PV has been “calm and measured”, according to the minister of climate change, Greg Barker. Read more

IEA predicts solar will be dominant energy source by 2050: GENR 22 May

Thursday, 5.22.2014 - 17:22 (Solarpowerportal)

Thursday’s Green Energy News Review reports on IEA’s new prediction that solar will dominate the global grid by 2050, the top ten food and drinks companies’ carbon shame, and the UK government’s mishandling of carbon capture. Read more

IEA predicts solar will be dominant energy source by 2050: GENR 22 May

Thursday, 5.22.2014 - 17:21 (PV-Tech)

Thursday’s Green Energy News Review reports on the IEA’s new prediction that solar will dominate the global grid by 2050, the top ten food and drinks companies’ carbon shame, and the UK government’s mishandling of carbon capture technology. Read more

Foresight Solar Fund acquires 37MW Bournemouth solar farm

Thursday, 5.22.2014 - 16:34 (Solarpowerportal)

Foresight Solar Fund has announced the acquisition of a 37MW solar farm located in Bournemouth. Read more

Popularity of UK solar thermal shows in early data from domestic RHI

Thursday, 5.22.2014 - 15:53 (Solarserver)

Solar thermal systems represent 24% of applications accepted in the first three weeks of the domestic portion of the UK's Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI). The domestic program was launched on April 9th, 2014, and the nation's Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) has supplied application data for the period through April 30th. Read more

U.S. DOE awards USD 10 million for solar CSP energy storage projects

Thursday, 5.22.2014 - 15:19 (Solarserver)

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has awarded USD 10 million to six new research and development (R&D) projects to advanced thermochemical energy storage technology for concentrating solar power (CSP) projects. Six national laboratories and colleges will pursue approaches using different materials and technologies under the DOE's CSP: ELEMENTS program. Read more

Put Battery Storage in the Hands of Grid Operators

Thursday, 5.22.2014 - 14:49 (Renewable Energy World)

The design of an electrical grid for the 21st Century is one of the world’s most exciting challenges, and at SolarCity we are vigorously engaged in assisting the effort. Our  vision is of a grid that is cleaner, more efficient, more flexible, more secure, and more affordable than what we currently have today. I’ve recently read speculation about on Read more

Middle Eastern Money Oils Wheels of Solar Expansion

Thursday, 5.22.2014 - 13:32 (Renewable Energy World)

The opportunity cost of oil exports is beginning to drive solar expansion in the Mideast Gulf and beyond, according to Mohamad Asad Khan, a senior investment manager at Kuwait’s Enertech. As part of a state organization with access to $300-$400 billion per year, his opinion counts. Read more

Capital One makes first renewable energy investment with US$100 million SolarCity deal

Thursday, 5.22.2014 - 13:15 (PV-Tech)

Capital One Bank has invested US$100million into a partnership with residential installer and leasing company SolarCity, marking the US bank’s first ever investment in renewable energy. Read more

Queensland mine in line to be Australia’s first powered by PV

Thursday, 5.22.2014 - 13:10 (PV-Tech)

US firm First Solar is to build a 1.7MW PV-diesel hybrid system to power mining giant Rio Tinto’s Weipa bauxite mine in Queensland, Australia. Read more

More than 200 UK solar farms left in limbo following support review

Thursday, 5.22.2014 - 12:49 (PV-Tech)

The future of 215 ground-mounted solar farms in the UK hangs in balance after the government announced proposals to revise support for solar farms, according to findings in the NPD Solarbuzz UK Deal Tracker report. Read more

Can Yieldcos Reduce the Risk of Solar Financing?

Thursday, 5.22.2014 - 12:46 (Renewable Energy World)

With the cost of utility-scale solar power approaching grid parity in many parts of the United States, a key barrier to growth is cheap, easy access to capital. Yieldcos are poised to play a significant role in this growth over the coming years. Read more

CfDs: what to expect and how to prepare

Thursday, 5.22.2014 - 12:03 (Solarpowerportal)

The proposed move to Contracts for Difference (CfDs) from April 2015 will mark a seismic shift in the way the UK solar farm market will access financial support; industry experts shed some light on what to expect from CfDs and how to get ready for their arrival. Read more

GCL partners to build over 4 GW of solar PV in China over the next three years

Thursday, 5.22.2014 - 9:08 (Solarserver)

GCL New Energy Holdings Ltd. (Hong Kong) has signed cooperation agreements with three companies to build 4.15 GW of solar photovoltaic (PV) projects in China over the next three years. As part of the agreements the company will also acquire up to 755 MW of existing Chinese PV projects. Under the largest of these agreements, GCL and GD Solar (Yixing, China) plan to co-develop and construct 3 GW of PV projects across China from 2014 through 2016, with a co-development target of 800 MW in 2014. GD Solar has also agreed to assist with the acquisition of 255 MW PV projects through partner companies, as well as the acquisition of 500 MW of additional PV. Read more

NPD Solarbuzz: 215 UK utility-scale solar PV plants at risk from potential policy changes

Thursday, 5.22.2014 - 9:03 (Solarserver)

NPD Solarbuzz (Santa Clara, California, U.S.) estimates that the outcome of 215 utility-scale solar photovoltaic (PV) projects are now being re-evaluated following regulatory changes proposed by the UK government. The Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) proposed in early May 2014 to close off the Renewables Obligation (RO) to PV plants larger than 5 MW, starting in April 2015. Before this announcement PV projects of any size completed through March 2017 were eligible to participate in the program. Read more

China Boosts Offshore Wind Power Development

Thursday, 5.22.2014 - 15:05 (Renewable Energy World)

China has taken steps to accelerate the development of its offshore wind power industry in a bid to increase the installed capacity beyond its 428.6 MW installed at the end of 2013. Read more

Chinese PV industry warns US against imposing trade barriers

Thursday, 5.22.2014 - 13:15 (PV-Tech)

The Chinese government, trade associations and a group of manufacturers have warned that the ongoing trade dispute in the US will damage the solar energy sector in both countries. Read more

Mercom Capital warns that potential anti-dumping tariffs will damage the Indian solar PV sector

Thursday, 5.22.2014 - 8:56 (Solarserver)

Describing potential anti-dumping tariffs as “bad policy”, Mercom Capital Group LLC (Austin, Texas, U.S.) says that if India imposes anti-dumping duties on imports of solar photovoltaic (PV) products from four nations it will revise down its 2014 installation forecast, currently at 1 GW. Mercom notes that the nation's Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) has also said that anti-dumping duties are a bad idea for the “young and fragile” sector. Finally, it notes that several manufacturers who initially supported the investigation have changed their position. Read more

How Fossil Fuel Interests Attack Renewable Energy

Thursday, 5.22.2014 - 22:11 (Renewable Energy World)

Fossil fuel-funded front groups repeatedly spread disinformation on renewable energy standard and net metering policies in an effort to overturn pro-clean energy laws in 2013 and 2014. Read more

GCL New Energy announces 4GW of project deals

Thursday, 5.22.2014 - 14:15 (PV-Tech)

GCL New Energy, the new holding company of Chinese firm GCL Poly, has announced a raft of new project agreements in China totalling 4GW. Read more

Trial production of Yingli Green’s metal-wrap-through modules has begun

Thursday, 5.22.2014 - 13:55 (PV-Tech)

Yingli Green has begun trial production of a new line of monocrystalline silicon solar modules that incorporate N-type metal-wrap-through (N-MWT) technology, the Chinese company announced yesterday. Read more

Renewables key to reducing UK reliance on foreign fuel imports

Thursday, 5.22.2014 - 13:45 (Solarpowerportal)

Renewable energy technologies will play a critical role in weaning the UK off its reliance on imported foreign fuel, according to energy supplier Good Energy. Read more

UK Green Investment Bank Aims to Spend $1.2 Billion This Year

Thursday, 5.22.2014 - 13:14 (Renewable Energy World)

The U.K. Green Investment Bank aims to boost the capital it commits to carbon-cutting projects to 700 million pounds ($1.2 billion) this year as it chases deals in offshore wind, waste and energy efficiency. Read more

Domestic RHI uptake: ‘steady growth rather than a big bang’

Thursday, 5.22.2014 - 13:04 (Solarpowerportal)

The Department of Energy and Climate Change has published deployment figures for the first 21 days of the domestic Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI). Read more

A New Way To Harness Waste Heat

Thursday, 5.22.2014 - 11:46 (Renewable Energy World)

Vast amounts of excess heat are generated by industrial processes and by electric power plants; researchers around the world have spent decades seeking ways to harness some of this wasted energy. Most such efforts have focused on thermoelectric devices, solid-state materials that can produce electricity from a temperature gradient, but the efficiency of such devices is limited by the availability of materials. Read more

J.v.G. Thoma JV to produce solar PV modules engineered for desert climates in Tunisia

Thursday, 5.22.2014 - 8:53 (Solarserver)

J.v.G. Thoma GmbH (Freystadt, Germany) has delivered and installed the solar photovoltaic (PV) manufacturing equipment for a facility in Tunisia which will have the capacity to produce 30 MW of PV modules annually. The factory will be operated under a joint venture between Green Panel Tech (Tunisia) and J.v.G. Thoma established in 2012. The Green Panel Technology Jurawatt Tunis SA (Tunisia) factory will manufacture monocrystalline and multicrystalline silicon PV modules especially designed for desert climates, with production scheduled to begin at the end of May or early June 2014. Read more