News from Solar Media portals

Liam Stoker reflects on last week’s Solar Finance & Investment Europe conference, where investors, developers and asset owners gathered to hear how emerging trends will shape Europe’s surging solar ecosystem in the coming years.

Panellists at London event were all confident market will retain momentum and grow bolder despite the speculative plays and competition from utilities and oil majors.

There is a “huge opportunity” for solar in Ireland, with the Renewable Electricity Support Scheme (RESS) providing a route to market for the technology.

Iberian operators tell London event they worry adoption of Lisbon’s solar auction design by neighbour Spain could entrench model producing prices developers ‘cannot survive’ on.

Free-market plays are spreading throughout Europe’s four corners despite risks that neither technology nor innovative finance can eliminate for now, say speakers at London event.

Wholesale price cannibalisation poses the most significant threat to Europe’s utility-scale solar industry, a panel of investors has heard at the London event.

PV Tech understands that two solar projects by developer Hive Energy and financier Noy Fund will be deployed without PPAs, with plans to generate revenues via direct energy sales.

Lightsource BP has clinched a funding deal with London-headquartered bank NatWest to finance the development of its maiden Spanish solar projects.

The momentum behind subsidy-free, utility-scale solar developments in the UK has continued to gather, with new names and familiar faces alike demonstrating their commitment to the market.

EU production line of 5 to 10GW a year is possible and would help deliver the required 117GW-to-630GW capacity push, experts say as separate study touts PV’s job benefits for coal regions.

Project in Sardinia (5MW) emerges as sole PV winner of 500MW auction dominated by wind power (495MW) but industry representatives believe solar future is subsidy-free.

Renewables, energy storage and grid assets are all being considered as top investor bags institutional backing for FEIP fund from the EIB and other investors.

PV Tech meets CEO Mike Bonte-Friedheim to discuss why the solar specialist is going global now and what it learned after deploying the UK’s self-styled largest subsidy-free project.

BNEF: American ITC rush and Spain’s subsidy-free shift help bolster 2019’s declining global solar finance figures, setting the scene for a boom of merchant and PPA-based PV this year.

World’s largest asset manager will make sustainability “integral” to its investment portfolios and divest from thermal coal by mid-2020, according to open letters by CEO Larry Fink.

Brussels’ new roadmap to pour one trillion euros into the sustainable economy should first support “already available” technologies such as PV, says industry body SolarPower Europe.

Government tells PV Tech 700-800MW new solar tender is expected to launch in late March 2020 and will feature third bidding option for projects proposing energy storage element.

Mercom stats paint bright picture for corporate solar funding in 2019 but IRENA warns capital flows to broader renewables must more than double by 2030 to combat global heating.

Firm raises further US$118 million through NPIII’s second close and is eyeing a 2.5-3GW pipeline, telling PV Tech of plans to complete fundraising by year-end.

German EPC ib vogt has announced the sale and commencement of construction of a 180MWp solar farm near Badajoz in Spain, teeing itself up for a slew of other subsidy-free developments in Southern Europe.

Carbon neutrality, renewable target and PV rooftop pledges by new Conservative-Green alliance herald ‘solar decade’ of the 2020s, says EU PV body SolarPower Europe.

UK renewables asset manager Armstrong Capital Management has penned a new joint venture with Danish investor European Energy to pursue a 500MW solar and storage pipeline in the UK.

GRIDSERVE has completed its “game changing” hybrid solar-plus-storage site in York, becoming the first utility-scale solar farm in the UK to use both trackers and bifacial solar panels.