Andy Colthorpe

Several obstacles to the installation of new solar power generating capacity in India must be overcome if the government’s ambitious renewable energy plans are to stay on track, according to Raj Prabhu, chief executive officer at clean energy consultancy and communications firm Mercom.

Self-consumption and other new business models for PV “can reduce and ultimately suppress the reliance on dedicated financial support”, according to Marie Latour, senior national policy advisor at the European Photovoltaic Industry Association.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued its fifth assessment report, Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis, in which the organisation argued that the human influence on climate change was undeniable.

Construction has been completed on a 4.2MW solar power plant in Odessa, Ukraine, by ET Solutions, a subsidiary of the multi-national ET Solar.

US PV company SunPower is to build Project Salvador, an unsubsidised 70MWp PV power plant in the Atacama Desert region of Chile.

A Chilean renewable energy research institute report revealed that Chile has reached 127MW in capacity of solar projects under development.

Following an agreement with Acciona Energy Oceania, solar PV structure manufacturer Mecasolar will supply the fixed structure to a 24MWp capacity solar farm in Australia.

Utility company E.ON has joined the board of US trade association Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA).

A contract has been signed for the first solar power plant to be built in the Gulf state of Kuwait, a 280MW solar thermal power plant in Al-Abdaliya.

The Canadian Solar Industries Association (CanSIA) has sent recommendations to the Ontario Ministry of Energy for boosting Ontario's PV sector, including a target for generating 5% of the province's energy from solar power by 2025.