Covid-19

Full-year revenues nudged up despite tough comparisons with the end of 2019 for the final quarter of last year. The inverter maker expects to log revenues of $385-405 million in the current three-month window.

The European Union agency responsible for providing finance to small and medium-sized businesses will have 64% more funds to disperse after the EIB, European Commission and its other shareholders voted to raise its share capitalization.

With the European Parliament formally voting through a €672.5 billion recovery and resilience fund, the baton will pass to the heads of the European Council and its grouping of economic ministers. It is hoped an initial, 13% slice of the fund will be available to member states from early next month.

The organizers of Intersolar and Ees Europe, in Munich, the largest photovoltaic and storage trade fairs in Europe, have decided to postpone the two events by six weeks. They hope that in the second half of the year there will be fewer restrictions and that the summer will have a dampening effect on the coronavirus pandemic.

With the nation almost doubling its new generation capacity figure for the year last month, the National Energy Administration is reportedly considering a joint solar and wind capacity target of 120 GW for this year.

Falling module prices will help PV post another record year after an estimated 132 GW was installed worldwide in 2020, according to an energy transition investment trends report published by Bloomberg New Energy Finance.

The private-sector arm of the World Bank, which claims to leverage $3 of its own capital and $8 from third parties for every dollar invested in its blended finance funds, has attempted to quantify what devoting Covid recovery funds to green investment would mean for emerging economies.

European renewables, including Spanish solar, made big gains as energy demand recovered before the second wave of Covid infections. Nuclear was a notable loser, in part because clean energy volumes in the north of the continent drove down power prices sufficiently to make reactors uncompetitive.

A report by McKinsey & Company reinforces the widely-held view renewables will supplant fossil fuels in the energy system but also joins the chorus of voices warning the world is on track to fall well short of limiting global temperature rises this century to 1.5C.

Polycrystalline PV technology, which is seeing its market share tumble on the global stage, still dominates India’s small solar manufacturing base and is emblematic of the R&D shortfalls in the sector, according to a survey of the state of the industry.