tenders

Saudi Arabia plans to tender seven solar projects with a combined capacity of 3.3GW during 2018, according to a statement from Turki Al Shehri, head of the country's Renewable Energy Project Development Office (REPDO), confirming news from Bloomberg earlier this week.

NV Energy, the main electric utility for the US state of Nevada, has tendered for more than 300MW of renewable energy in a Request for Proposals that also includes consideration of battery energy storage paired with renewables.

Australian large-scale renewables investor Lyon Group has confirmed it is selling three projects under development, totalling 800MWh of energy storage and 545MW of PV generation capacity, in Queensland, Victoria and South Australia.

Tenders for solar-plus-storage projects on French island territories including Corsica, Guadeloupe and Martinique have resulted in winning bids often 40% lower than the victors of previous reverse auctions.

Over and over again, at last week’s PV Expo trade show in Tokyo, PV Tech heard that those that will survive in Japan’s PV market will be the ones in it for the long haul. Andy Colthorpe spoke to industry observers and participants to get an inside look.

The prospect of Japan introducing a tender system for large-scale solar project rights from this year does not phase international companies doing PV business in Japan, who have said they are ready for the new policy.

Japan is set to lower its levels of feed-in tariff (FiT) payments once again, while a multi-gigawatt pipeline of unbuilt large-scale PV projects will be “cancelled” at the beginning of April.

India’s largest utility NTPC has completed 115MW out of 260MW of its Bhadla solar plant in the Indian state of Rajasthan, according to a BSE filing

Last week saw solar prices in India blast the Asian giant’s energy sector into a new era, but what happened to all the fears about project viability and unrealistic bidding? PV Tech caught up with financiers and analysts to discuss a new financial environment.

Doubt has been cast on the International Finance Corporation’s (IFC) ‘Scaling Solar’ programme after a panel of investors revealed it could be fostering a race to the bottom for unrealistic tariffs, diverting focus from essential bankability.