Welcome back to another busy week! We are covering how COVID-19 is hitting solar energy industry in different parts of the world, the floating solar projects in India, the mass production of Trina Solar’s brand new modules, and many more!
COVID-19 Watch
Australia
Australians are panic buying PV and home energy storage, as reported by pv magazine.
Due to the recent bushfire, the spread of COVID-19, the surge in electricity consumption due to working from home, many consumers in Australia are eager to ensure they have a steady supply of power.
Moreover, solar energy can be a great way for savings. According to Smart Energy, an Australian-based solar energy company, typically its customers can pay off their PV system in 5 years or less. They would own the power generation system and enjoy free electricity from that point on.
Germany
1.German solar industry requests for deadline extension
The German Solar Industry Association (BSW-Solar) has asked to extend the grid connection deadlines in the wake of coronavirus pandemic, according to pv magazine.
Large scale projects that were won via the national tendering scheme are required to connect to the grid in 2 years, or they may be disqualified for the financial incentives
2.COVID-19 is grounding Germany’s solar industry to a halt
The ripple effect of COVID-19 does not simply send the prices of PV raw and supplementary materials soaring, as stated in pv magazine's report . The effect is much more profound than that.
The construction sites are now empty lots. There are no more modules available to be installed. Therefore many foreign assembly workers have returned to their home countries.
The logistics and restrictions over cross national or federal border travel made it difficult to transfer assembly tools.
The disruption of productions in Asia has disrupted the supply chain in Germany. This has led to postponements, which could be as long as 6 weeks.
The Netherlands
The Dutch PV association seeks to delay the gird connection deadlines
Germany is not the only one finding it difficult to meet the grid connection deadlines while the coronavirus is wreaking havoc, as reported by pv magazine.
Holland Solar, the PV association in the Netherlands is requesting the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy to delay the grid connection deadlines for solar projects from the SDE+ incentive program.
The trade body believes that a new situation will take place that will put the development of the renewable energy in jeopardy, if the projects are moving forward at an increasingly slow pace or even completely stopped.
Holland Solar is negotiating with several government authorities, in the hopes of getting a grace period for 2020 projects.
United Arab Emirates
COVID-19 got in the way of a new world record for solar energy, according to pv magazine
The bid results for the 1.5 GW Al-Dhafra PV plant in Abu Dhabi were planned to be released last week, which could have set a new world record in the lowest price for solar power.
However, the meeting was postponed due to the restrictions over large gatherings, which followed the outbreak of COVID-19.
The companies that have submitted a bid for the gigantic solar projects include:
- ACWA Power, the fossil fuel conglomerate from Saudi Arabia
- Shanghai Electric, an energy multinational corporation from China
- EDF (French energy company) + Jinko Power (the Chinese solar power giant)
- Engie (a French utility company) + Al Fanar (a renown EPC developer from Saudi Arabia)
- SoftBank Energy (a subsidiary of Japan’s SoftBank Group) + Eni (a power company from Italy)
- Total (the oil giant from France) and Marubeni Corp. (another Japanese multinational conglomerate)
Regional Markets
China
1. The National Development and Reform Commission's Announcement
The National Development and Reform Commission issued an announcement regarding "The Coordinated Development Plan for Tongzhou District of Beijing and Sanhe, Dachang, and Xianghe counties of Hebei Province", which demands energy security for the region on March 17.
The regional energy structure is required to be enhanced on the basis of promoting green energy, low carbon, high efficiency with low energy consumption and smart technology.
The energy consumption structure also needs to be optimized, where the share of clean energy in the energy mix should account for a much higher proportion.
A green and low-carbon energy supply system is to be built, where the main power sources are electricity and natural gas, and supplementary power sources are solar, geothermal and biomass energy.
A mutual supply system will be built, which consists of coupling systems of multiple distributed power generation projects.
To increase the utilization rate of green energy, distributed energy such as solar energy, distributed PV, CCHP (Combined Cooling, Heating and Power) will be actively campaigned, which is to jointly developed with the traditional energy system via smart technology.
2. Jiangsu Province
On March 16, China Datang Corporation has made an announcement about its subsidiary Jiangsu Datang International Lusigang Power Generation launching an EPC tender for the grid parity pilot project.
The project is located in Qidong City, Jiangsu Province.
The project construction scale is 100MWp.
The tender documents can be obtained from March 16 to March 31. The deadline for bid submissions is on April 7.
3. Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region
Inner Mongolia Energy Power Company has launched an open tender for modules that are going to be deployed in a 50 MW photovoltaic project.
The tender documents can be obtained from March 19 to 17:00 on March 23,
The deadline for bid submissions is at 14:00 on April 9.
India
The state Odisha is planning to install a floating PV system of 500 MW, according to pv magazine. In fact, Odisha could actually generate more than 17 GW of electricity, provided that the potential of its 877-square meter water surface of its reservoir could be fully utilized.
Companies
Canadian Solar
Canadian Solar has announced that it has secured a 55-million-Euro funding to construct a 151 MWp portfolio of solar PV projects in Italy, which are dispersed across Italy.
The construction of the 1st projects of this portfolio is planned to start in 2020Q3.
Trina Solar
Trina Solar has announced that it will commence the mass production for the 500W+ Duomax V and Tallmax V ("V series") modules, which came shortly after the company’s launch of the V series in late February.
The 500W+ V series boasts a conversion efficiency that is as high as 21%. Its power output could reach well over 500W.
The 500W+ V series modules are available with 2 types:
- Duomax V bifacial double-glass modules
- Tallmax V back sheet modules
Risen Energy
Under the contract, the Chinese firm will provide 20MW of high-efficiency solar PV modules to the Malaysian firm. It represents the world's first order for the 500W modules and another example of Risen Energy's leadership in the era of PV 5.0.
(Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay)
