With South Africa faced with ongoing power cuts, Jules Scully explores the how solar PV can help decarbonise the country’s coal-heavy grid while providing energy security.
In the face of rising materials costs and natural disasters impacting output, solar manufacturers should heighten their focus on insurance placement to protect against large losses, a Chinese insurance broker has told PV Tech.
Price increases in polysilicon and other auxiliary solar module materials have exerted much pressure on manufacturers, JA Solar has said, impacting on profitability in the first half of 2021. Xinming Huang, senior vice president at JA Solar, tells PV Tech how the company is responding.
A renewables procurement round launched today (19 March) by the government of South Africa will aim to source 2.6GW of clean energy capacity, of which 1GW will be solar PV and 1.6GW wind.
South Africa’s government will issue a request for proposals in the coming weeks for 2.6GW of additional solar and wind capacity, it has been announced by President Cyril Ramaphosa.
Array Technologies has secured an agreement to supply 1GW of its single-axis solar trackers to RP Construction Services, a US-based provider of design and installation services for PV projects.
Solar developer Lightsource bp has once again turned to Array Technologies for its solar tracker procurement, purchasing 1.4GW worth of the supplier’s DuraTrack HZ v3 single-axis trackers.
South Africa’s solar industry has welcomed new government plans to purchase 6.8GW of additional renewables from independent power producers as of 2022, but warned that an “urgent response” is needed to tackle the country’s ongoing energy crisis.
Newly selected winners will bring 460MW of solar and nearly 3GWh of energy storage to Aloha State, a fleet of 16 projects across Oahu, Maui and Hawaii Island.
The deal, which Dominion says is largest ever brokered by a US state government, comprises four different solar projects set to come online before 2023, as well as one wind project.
