This week's Movers & Shakers segment sees big waves in Europe with a new president for SolarPower Europe and Lightsource hiring a new strategy officer in its move to evolve from a pure solar company to a global energy leader. There's resignations in some of Asia's biggest module manufacturers including Trina Solar and Yingli Green, and the Coalition for Community Solar Access celebrates its first anniversary and talks to PV Tech on how to keep the community solar boom going.
France has awarded contracts to 79 projects in the first 500MW tender of its 3GW large-scale programme, as well as announcing tender programmes for 450MW of self-consumption renewable energy systems and 210MW of 'solar innovations' including solar roads.
Europe added 6.7GW of solar last year with demand decreasing by more than 21% from the prior year, according to the latest data from SolarPower Europe.
Last week the EU’s Africa Renewable Energy Initiative announced 14 new renewable energy projects across the continent, representing 1.7GW, with a total potential investment of almost €4 billion.
Pakistan is set to adopt competitive bidding for new solar PV projects, according to an order published by the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (NEPRA).
France has sought to increase its ambitions for solar PV in the country after the technology “overshot expectations”, a government representative has said.
Over and over again, at last week’s PV Expo trade show in Tokyo, PV Tech heard that those that will survive in Japan’s PV market will be the ones in it for the long haul. Andy Colthorpe spoke to industry observers and participants to get an inside look.
Having confirmed the 18-month extension of anti-dumping and anti-subsidy measures on imports of Chinese solar cells and modules, the European Commission (EC) has initiated a partial interim review into what form the punitive duties should take.
Sri Lanka will go ahead with an international tender to set up a 100MW floating solar plant on the Maduru Oya Reservoir in the eastern part on the island.
