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The Ministry of Ecological Transition (MITECO) in Spain has authorised 132 solar PV projects across the country with a total capacity of 24.8GW.

Spanish utility Iberdrola has received environmental approval for the construction of Europe’s largest solar PV plant in Portugal, with a capacity of 1.2GW.

Lithuanian government-owned utility and renewables developer Ignitis Group has acquired a Latvian developer with a 300MWp portfolio of solar PV.

Romanian oil company OMV Petrom and state-owned utility Complexul Energetic Oltenia (CE Oltenia) will build 450MW of solar PV in Romania.

Hamburg-based solar operator Blue Elephant Energy has joined forces with renewables developer Umweltgerechte Kraftanlagen (UKA) to develop a 500MWp solar portfolio in Germany.

As the market moves away from power purchase agreements, the possibility for a new breed of investors comfortable with market risk is emerging alongside the potential for some larger investors to bring trading in-house.

While recent solar auctions in Spain and Portugal have made headlines with low prices and high levels of participation, the power purchase agreement market will be key to helping both countries reach their 2030 solar deployment targets, it was suggested during a panel discussion.

Solar industry players should collaborate with governments and regulators to overcome floating PV permitting and bankability issues and unlock the potential of the technology in Europe, a panel has concluded.

Europe’s power networks need to embrace flexibility and whole systems approaches on much larger scales if they are to be capable of accommodating the levels of renewable power necessary to hit 2030 targets.

Renewables firm Global Energy Services (GES) has started construction work on three solar projects in Spain with a combined capacity of 131MWp