News in Brief: NRG commissions a 3.15MW Florida solar plant with Lakeland Electric, Power Africa reaches 30,000 new solar connections in Nigeria, PayGo solar company Azuri nets US$5 million for off-grid expansion in Africa, UPS will expand its solar capacity five-fold and India's BHEL bags its biggest single rooftop PV order.
PV Tech’s preliminary analysis of global PV manufacturing capacity expansion announcements in January, 2017 have remained subdued and continue the trend set in the second-half of 2016.
Doubt has been cast on the International Finance Corporation’s (IFC) ‘Scaling Solar’ programme after a panel of investors revealed it could be fostering a race to the bottom for unrealistic tariffs, diverting focus from essential bankability.
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.
Gigawatt Global, a multinational renewable energy company and partner of Obama’s Power Africa initiative, has broken ground on its 1GW solar programme with the 7.5MW solar project in Burundi.
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.
Global grid-connected solar PV additions reached 75GW in 2016, a 50% year-on-year growth from 50GW in 2015, according to the PV Market Alliance (PVMA).
