Grids & Integration

The Pacific Gas and Electric Company, founded 114 years ago, is filing for bankruptcy and may be broken up by regulators. None of which is good news for solar project owners holding contracts with the utility.

In the U.K., systems bigger than 50 MW fall under the Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects regime and require special permitting. With the aim of optimizing the market for higher storage penetration, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy is holding a consultation until March 25 to determine whether to retain the 50 MW threshold.

Topping off a great week for the British next generation utility platform, BBOXX won the Zayed Energy Prize after receiving funding from the Africa Infrastructure Investment Managers fund to speed up roll out of its platform in Rwanda, Kenya and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

With 4.3 GW of utility-scale solar and 3.9 of distributed generation predicted, the figures collated from federal sources don’t take account of the huge capacity of solar projects waiting in the interconnection queues of seven grid operators.

The International Renewable Energy Agency has plotted the potentially dramatic impacts of a global transition to renewable energy from fossil fuels. Today’s A New World report notes the transition requires international cooperation to manage disruption, as it will leave behind countries and industries that fail to adapt.

Beijing has outlined a series of policies mandating local and provincial authorities, state-owned banks and grid operators to pull out the stops to drive the rapid escalation of subsidy-free PV projects. The announcement has seen Chinese solar stocks on the rise.

In Prémian, southern France, a blockchain project developed by Sunchain is providing six consumers with solar power and certifying transactions – which also involve local distribution system operator Enedis.

A competition backed by public funding from the governments of the two nations is seeking proposals for projects that will help electricity grids transition to clean and flexible energy.

The Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy has proposed a replacement for the flat rate FIT payment regime that is hard to argue with, as it is linked to the actual amount of electricity exported back into the grid.

Of that colossal sum, 350 GW would be for solar. India currently has installed renewable energy capacity of 75 GW with a further 46 GW under implementation.