Projects

Australia’s first commercial solar plant used to displace diesel has commenced operation at mining giant Rio Tinto’s Weipa bauxite mine in Queensland.

The US Trade and Development Agency (USTDA) has awarded a grant to US-based renewable energy firm NextGen Solawazi to help develop a 60MW PV plant in Shinyanga, in northwestern Tanzania, a country where just 15% of the population has access to electricity.

There were ten solar power plants with a combined capacity of 238MW connected to the grid in the US in August, according the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC) Energy Infrastructure Update for August 2015.

PV energy provider United Photovoltaics Group has completed the purchase of PV power plants in China totalling 170MW.

German EPC service contractor IBC Solar is moving into PV project development and financing in India.

Plans by Italy’s grid operator to allow for the interconnection of energy storage to the network have resulted in the country’s first grid-connected solar-smoothing storage facility being inaugurated.

President Francois Hollande inaugurated a 12MW solar farm in central France last week which uses PV panels assembled domestically by SunPower.

ConEdison Development, a subsidiary of mammoth US utility company ConEdison developing and operating solar and wind power projects, has acquired a 50% stake in a 335MW DC solar farm in California.

ThomasLloyd CTI Asia Holdings, a wholly-owned subsidiary of global investment banking and investment management group ThomasLloyd, has sold the rights to two solar projects on Negros Occidental in the Philippines with a combined capacity of 80MW.

Global marine terminal operator DP World has announced plans to launch a major renewable energy project equipped with PV panels in Dubai.