A round-up of the latest news from the US PV sector, as BlackRock acquires Distributed Solar Development, Cypress Creek closes US$200m of financing and Vanderbilt University moves towards 100% renewables.
A string of high-profile cyberattacks on energy infrastructure highlights the vulnerability of solar farms as they become increasingly reliant on digital systems. Alice Grundy looks at the rising threat of cyberattacks and the measures asset owners can take to mitigate the risks.
Major PV inverter manufacturer SMA Solar Technology reported a rebound in shipments and sales in the third quarter of 2020, driven by a recovery in demand after its Q2 financials were hit by project slowdowns in Europe and the US due to COVID-19.
Germany’s RWE is on track to increase its solar and wind portfolio to 10GW by the end of 2020 as the company ramps up its renewable energy expansion following project commissioning delays due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Oil and gas major Shell is looking to expand its use of solar PV in Singapore as part of plans cut its CO2 emissions in the country by a third within a decade.
The government of Colombia has announced plans to hold a renewable energy auction in the first quarter of 2021 that it says could represent an investment of more than US$6 billion in the country.
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.
The PV industry is on track for strong growth in 2020, despite 10 months of the year being shrouded in uncertainty and perennial pessimism. And while almost all in the sector have been lamenting supposed softness in demand this year, attributed to the COVID-19 pandemic, it turns out that the limiting factor to production and shipment volumes this year simply comes down to the supply of raw materials, namely polysilicon.
Despite recording a 70% year-on-year reduction in utility-scale solar installations in the first nine months of 2020, India’s renewable energy market is beginning to show signs of improvement, figures from JMK Research & Analytics reveal.
