merchant risk

With subsidies now a distant memory in most markets, solar is increasingly finding itself deployed via government tenders and corporate PPAs. But what are the prospects for those to mature, and to what extent will merchant revenue models emerge this decade? Jules Scully reports.

Free-market plays are spreading throughout Europe’s four corners despite risks that neither technology nor innovative finance can eliminate for now, say speakers at London event.

Several provincial authorities in Vietnam are developing guidelines for renewables that should improve the country’s solar market, but stubbornness from the monopoly utility EVN means that the largest-scale projects remain the preserve of big risk-takers, according to a representative of international law firm Baker McKenzie.

Utility-scale solar projects and hundreds of other power projects in the Philippines are being held up by pending approvals at the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC), a problem compounded by last week’s dismissal of ERC chairman Jose Vicente Salazar for grave misconduct related to allegations of corruption.