Asia & Oceania

The new contracts for difference mechanism in the UK market is “an interesting opportunity for a more market orientated approach”, according to First Solar.

The US has seen a surge of Chinese and Taiwanese PV imports as companies seek to secure low-cost product ahead of the imposition of trade duties.

The sudden withholding of grid access from renewable energy projects including solar is “unreasonable” and could bring “great confusion” to the renewable energy industry, the Japan Renewable Energy Foundation (JREF) has claimed.

According to inverter manufacturer, Ingeteam, the largest solar power plant in Oceania, the 20MW Royalla Solar Farm has been commissioned.

The board of Chinese PV manufacturer Hanergy has approved a change of name for the company.

Kyocera has launched another joint venture (JV) company to develop a number of PV projects in Japan, this time with Japanese lending institution, Mitsubishi UFJ Lease and Finance and a construction firm, Takenaka.

A hybrid solar and wind farm with a combined generation capacity of 56MW, built by a consortium of companies including Mitsui Chemical and Toshiba in Japan has begun commercial operation.

The Japanese government has confirmed that it will review the current feed-in tariff programme for solar and wind, due in part to fears over lack of available grid connection and a bottleneck of large-scale projects.

A joint venture involving GE Energy Financial Services has secured a loan worth more than US$800 million for the building of Japan’s largest solar power project to date.

India's Tata Power Solar has announced the completion of five solar power projects for the Chennai Silks group.