Europe

Chinese solar panel manufacturer Astronergy has delivered 154.4MWdc of modules to Germany to build a TOPCon PV plant. 

Chinese technology company Huawei will supply string inverters and smart transformer stations to a 205MW PV and wind farm in Poland.

Featuring nearly 1.5 million PV modules and with a generation capacity of 590MWp, the Francisco Pizarro plant in Spain came into operation in August 2022. George Heynes talks to developer Iberdrola about the challenges of constructing Europe’s largest solar farm.

Industrial conglomerate Baywa Group plans to sell Solar Trade, an international solar trading business that is part of BayWa r.e.

Solar tracker manufacturer Soltec posted net profits of €13.1 million (US$13.9 million) for the year 2022, a €14 million increase on 2021 which saw a €1.2 million loss for the company.  

Solar developer Lightsource bp has received environmental approval for 19 solar PV projects across four regions in Spain.

Major renewable energy company EDF Renewables has acquired 529MWp of solar PV development portfolio from solar developer MEC Energy in Germany.

Internet connection and data centre provider Equinix has signed five power purchase agreements (PPAs) in Spain with a capacity of 225MW.

Solar module underperformance has nearly doubled since 2019, accounting for around US$2.5 billion in projected losses for the global solar industry.

Trade body SolarPower Europe has called on the European Commission to include a ‘best-in-class’ solar labelling to leverage PV demand for European manufacturing in the Green Deal Industrial Plan.