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.
Support from Bancomext and World Bank’s IFC will help Fotowatio take Potrero Solar project to finish line, with operational launch scheduled in mid-2020.
Banco Sabadell supplies close to €30m in debt to Renovalia’s five-strong solar cluster in Ciudad Real province, first of firm’s 1GW merchant pipeline of PV and wind.
Free-market success will require accepting merchant risks and even ‘reverse subsidy’ logic of paying for grid access, say developers, investors and utilities gathered at Munich event.
Martin Libra, Head of LATAM at Prothea, an independent advisory boutique providing advisory and asset management services in the renewable energy sector, explains the chances opening up in the Chilean wind and solar market, which can now be considered a pioneer in the grid parity trend that is currently developing in Southern Europe.
The lifting of political and cost-based brakes on European solar is set to awaken a sleeping giant, with subsidy-free solar projects potentially the norm all across Europe in just a few years.
Carnegie Clean Energy has started construction of its 10MW Northam Solar Farm, which it claims to be the first utility-scale PV project to be developed on a merchant basis in Western Australia.
Utility-scale solar projects and hundreds of other power projects in the Philippines are being held up by pending approvals at the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC), a problem compounded by last week’s dismissal of ERC chairman Jose Vicente Salazar for grave misconduct related to allegations of corruption.
