The battle between South Africa’s utility Eskom and renewable independent power producers (IPPs) continues with legal confirmation that IPPs can force Eskom’s hand to force it to sign the power purchase agreements (PPAs) under the government’s procurement programme.
Plenty of naysayers have warned about unrealistic bidding and various delays damaging the Indian solar sector, but the head of ACME Solar, one of the largest developers India, approaching 1GW of installed capacity, has a very positive outlook on the industry's future. PV Tech caught up Manoj Kumar Upadhyay, the founder, chairman and managing director of ACME Group at the company offices in Gurgaon, New Delhi, to discuss delayed PPAs, transmission infrastructure, the approaching Goods and Services Tax (GST) Bill and a unique point of view on India's Ultra Mega solar power parks.
Former Texas governor Rick Perry, secretary of energy nominee to head the very department he suggested should be scrapped, said in his Senate confirmation hearing yesterday that he regretted making that recommendation.
As Donald Trump officially becomes the 45th president of the United States today, the solar industry remains quietly confident that any momentum gained so far will continue, even under the fossil-fuel promoting, climate change-denying Republican.
In this week's Movers & Shakers segment, PV Tech focuses mainly on executive shifts in US solar companies involved in storage, trackers, residential loans and more. The African Development Bank is also revamping its management board, with a new head of Renewables.
India’s first grid-scale solar-plus-storage tender from Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI) has received very strong interest with a total of 13 developers submitting bids.
Washington-based environmental organisation the Sierra Club is taking Florida Power & Light to court over a US$811 million rate hike over the next four years that “bilks millions of customers and further locks the Sunshine State into an over reliance on financially risky, climate-disrupting gas,” the group said.
