The corporate power purchase agreement (PPA) market is currently struggling from a “large gulf” in understanding that standardised contracts could solve, but the industry is still a “long way off” from introducing them.
The continued growth of the secondary solar market on a pan-European scale will result in “exciting times” for the sector, but big utilities are unlikely to stay on the sidelines.
According to provisional data from BloombergNEF (BNEF), global solar PV installations reached 109GW in 2018 as the cost of installing a megawatt of photovoltaic capacity fell 12%, which spurred markets outside China to increase installations.
A series of issues that initially centered on the US Section 201 case, the US v China trade, China’s 531 New Deal and India’s trade tariffs, combined to slice around US$3 billion from the total global corporate funding into the solar sector in 2018, according to Mercom Capital Group.
Energy giant Shell has increased its global solar footprint with the acquisition of a 49% stake in Cleantech Solar, a Southeast Asia and India-focused solar company.
The developing post-subsidy solar market in Europe has taken another step forward with the news that UK-based investor Octopus has extended five power purchase agreements in Italy with renewable energy trader EGO Group.
