Central & South America

The solar plant is the Indian multinational’s fifth win in Latin America. The EPC has a a 93.3 MW project in Argentina and is constructing three other Chilean PV plants with a total generation capacity of 588 MW.

With bifacial modules making their way into the mainstream, tracker manufacturers and energy companies are operating test facilities around the world. To drive the LCOE as low as possible, tracker manufacturers now also care about what is happening underneath the modules, and not just above. As the power comes from light reflected from the ground, increasing that reflectivity has been mooted by many stakeholders. This is not without complication, however, and the quest for optimization goes into the next round.

The Climate Investment Platform launched by three multilateral bodies in September is now open for business and renewables companies in developing nations across 14 regions including south Asia could qualify for help with clean energy facilities, renewables-related grid improvements and energy efficiency schemes.

Batteries, and the raw materials that make them, are a frequent target of public criticism. The high water consumption required for lithium extraction is speeding up the desertification process around the salt lakes of Latin America’s so-called “lithium triangle”, for example. The mining debate highlights general problems with the extraction of raw materials, including copper, crude oil, and lithium, but international companies can still influence extraction methods – and there are plenty of different approaches.

The government of Suriname will use the amount for rural electrification through installation of solar-DG hybrid PV systems in 50 remote villages of the nation.

The annual global outlook report for solar published by IHS Markit notes there was no real uptick in the amount of new capacity added last year, compared with the returns seen in 2018. That is likely to kill any hope India has of overtaking the U.S. as the world’s second biggest solar market in 2020.

Clean energy investment across 104 emerging markets fell sharply by $36 billion in year 2018 from the previous year, even as their coal burn surged approximately 500 terawatt hours to a record high of 6.9 thousand terawatt-hours. Though the decline in clean energy investments was driven largely by China, inflows to India and Brazil also slipped by $2.4 billion and $2.7 billion, respectively. India, however, emerged as the market with greatest renewables potential.

The University of Birmingham is a research partner on the Solar Cooling Initiative of International Solar Alliance that aims to spread the use of solar and solar-hybrid energy in agriculture.

According to the latest market forecast published by Wood Mackenzie, it seems that global PV installation figures will rise to 125 GW per year from 2020. Continued global capacity expansion will come in through a growing gigawatts-club.

The acquisition would be made through Khanij Bidesh India Ltd (KABIL)—a joint venture of three public-sector mining units—which recently visited the Lithium Triangle countries in South America (Chile, Argentina and Bolivia) to explore the possibility of lithium acquisition.