Markets & Finance

The International Finance Corporation (IFC) has finalised a US$653 million debt package for 13 solar projects at the Benban Solar Park, near Aswan in Egypt.

WElink Energy has started construction of a 221MW solar PV plant in Portugal that will not benefit from subsidies.

Scatec Solar and its partners have reached financial close for six PV projects in Egypt with a combined generation capacity of 400MW.

Indian railway minister Piyush Goyal has launched 5MW of rooftop solar projects at Hazrat Nizamuddin, New Delhi, Anand Vihar and Delhi railway stations.

India’s Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) is finalising laws that will include penalties for state governments and distribution companies (Discoms) that do not honour power purchase agreements (PPAs), according to power minister R.K. Singh.

Single-axis solar tracker firm Soltec, headquartered in Spain said it expects to double its turnover and supply more than 1.1GW of trackers in 2017.

Thin-film manufacturer First Solar reported record Q3 bookings of 4.5GW taking the company’s order book to 7.4GW for shipments out to 2020.

The bank noted that more than five million people could be reached through solar PV.

Solar trade association SolarPower Europe has updated its global solar demand forecast for 2017, expecting to reach the 100GW level for the first time.

Kerala’s solar industry is growing well, however it faces a burden in the form of a cap on the percentage of solar that can be added to any single transformer.