Covid-19

Industry body the VDMA said business fell 55% from the final three months of last year to the first quarter of this year for the worst retreat since 2012. The nature of the order book and sales figures can both be explained by the global progress of Covid-19, according to the organization.

Vaibhav Pratap Singh, senior analyst from South Asian thinktank the Council on Energy, Environment and Water, tells pv magazine about the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the Indian solar sector, green finance and other investment prospects.

Plus, one Australian installer says residents who had installed solar and storage at home will be cushioned against thumping, coronavirus-related electricity bill rises this quarter and there are signs of recovery in overall energy consumption levels.

The industry needs to cut a dependence on lithium-ion battery imports from China, according to Nitin Gadkari, who said the government is looking to support research into alternative technologies.

They are words to chill the soul of solar project owners when uttered in relation to feed-in tariffs: retroactive FIT cuts. A Ukrainian government smarting at the cost of funding an overly successful solar incentive program appears bent on emulating the approach of governments in Spain, Italy and Czechia by reopening signed payment contracts to reset the monies paid for clean power, despite the costly lawsuits that have greeted such moves in the past.

The government is said to be working on amending its renewable energy legislation to enable people without their own roofspace to benefit from the solar boom.

The government has ramped up its budget for the rebate scheme to €10 million.

With electric vehicles starting to gain traction, the International Energy Agency’s updated, ten-year e-mobility forecast has suggested geopolitical and economic concerns will trump environmental niceties when it comes to encouraging recycling. But what price ever-cheaper batteries?

Industry body SolarPower Europe is trying to stay bullish about the lingering effects as the continent starts to come out of lockdown and one analyst has predicted a healthy large scale solar market will carry the US through the crisis.

SolarPower Europe has predicted the volume of new PV capacity added this year will be 4% less than last year’s figure because of the Covid-19 crisis. At the end of 2019, the world had topped 630 GW of solar. For 2020, around 112 GW of new PV capacity is expected, and in 2021, newly installed capacity could be 149.9 GW if governments support renewables in their coronavirus economic recovery plans.