The total corporate funding into the global solar sector increased by 55% in Q1 2023 compared with Q4 2022, and 11% year-on-year compared with the same period in Q1 last year.
In January the South African government released an amendment to its energy action plan that lowered the local content requirements of solar modules deployed on government-backed schemes from 100% to 30%. The move was unsurprising to many, and may speak to the overwhelming rise of private projects in the country’s PV sector.
Higher interest rates in the second half of the year slowed down corporate funding in the global solar sector to US$24.1 billion in 2022, according to research from Mercom Capital Group.
The World Bank has approved US$165 million in additional financing to support 450MW of rooftop solar deployment in India and make distributed generation systems in the country more affordable.
Online retail giant launches solar and wind projects in France, South Africa, Italy and Germany for the first time, bringing its total renewable capacity to 6.5GW.