Asia & Oceania

A renewable energy research facility will be built in the disaster-hit Japanese region of Fukushima, after the area’s local government and Fraunhofer ISE research institute signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU).

The Indian government is seeking a US$500 million loan from the World Bank to initiate construction of a planned 4GW solar project in Rajasthan.

A large-scale storage system made by reusing electric vehicle batteries has been developed and deployed at a 10MW solar farm in south western Japan by Sumitomo Corporation.

SolarWorld chairman Frank Asbeck, the chief agitator in a string of trade cases against the Chinese PV industry, has been accused of “reckless” behaviour that could put thousands of US solar jobs at risk.

Industry advocacy body, the Australian Solar Council, has launched a ‘save solar’ campaign.

The programme has been repeatedly successful and director general Arun Kumar has said it will now run every month.

Independent power producer Etrion, headquartered in Geneva, has announced details of two forthcoming PV projects in Japan and confirmed that both will receive the feed-in tariff (FiT).

Gujarat, India’s leading solar state, is to introduce a net metering policy in the coming weeks, according to local press reports.

The abolition of Australia’s Renewable Energy Target (RET) could lead to the loss of almost 7,000 jobs, according to an industry body.

Investment groups Equis Funds and Partners Group have raised ¥26.1 billion (US$250 million) of equity to fund utility-scale solar power stations for developer Nippon Renewable Energy through a joint investment platform, Japan Solar.