Africa Battles to Get Big Solar Projects on Grid

In an expanse of sand 60 miles (100 km) north of Senegal’s capital, two men set to work digging up tree stumps to clear space for what could soon be the biggest solar plant in West Africa.

In less than a year, says developer Senergy PV SA, this shrubby lot will be covered with 96,000 gleaming solar panels from China, injecting up to 30 megawatts into the grid.

It is an attractive prospect for a nation with a dire power deficit, and which currently meets most of its needs by burning imported oil in hugely inefficient diesel generators.

“The context is favorable,” Karim Ndiaye, investment director at French private equity firm Meridiam, which bought out the original Senergy company in 2014, told Reuters.

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Africa Battles to Get Big Solar Projects on Grid

CITD becomes the first MSME institute to go solar

Ministry of Micro Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) goes solar with Hyderabad-based Central Institute of Tool Design (CITD) installing a 50 KWP roof-top solar energy power plant that generates close to 250 units per day. The plant is the first to be installed in all of the 300 institutes and centres that come under the MSME.

Installation of the power plant has resulted in the institute saving Rs. 2.91 lakh every six months. The CITD is expected to expand its solar power generation to 400 KWP in the coming years. Solar power, once the plant reaches its full capacity will cover about 10 to 12 per cent of energy requirements of the institute.

The next MSME institute in the city to go for solar power is expected to be National Institute of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (NIMSME), said Additional Secretary and Development Commissioner Ministry of MSME Surendranath Tripathi said at the inauguration of the plant here on Sunday.

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CITD becomes the first MSME institute to go solar

Solar Impulse 2 departs Egypt on final leg of fuel-free global trip

Solar Impulse 2, an aircraft powered by solar energy, has left Egypt on the final leg of the first ever global fuel-free journey. Its flight to the United Arab Emirates was delayed due to a heat wave in Saudi Arabia.

The single-seat plane took off from Cairo at 1:30 a.m. local time Sunday, en route to Abu Dhabi, its starting point in March 2015 and its final destination. The flight is expected to take between 48 and 72 hours.

Solar Impulse 2 arrived in Cairo after a two-day flight from Spain, finishing the 3,745-kilometer (2,327-mile) journey with an average speed of 76.7 kilometers per hour (47.7 miles per hour). On June 23, it became the first solar-powered aircraft to cross the Atlantic Ocean, flying 70 hours fromNew York to Seville, Spain. Read More…

Solar Impulse 2 departs Egypt on final leg of fuel-free global trip

Obama’s New Energy Initiative Another Win for Solar

The White House announced a truly groundbreaking initiative Tuesday called the Clean Energy Savings for All Americans. This program aims to increase access to solar energy across communities of all income levels and geographies, so that no matter where you live, if you have a sunny roof, you have the chance to go solar. And the administration did so by providing a bevy of options that move renewables and solar forward significantly.

The array of initiative components culminates in a goal of providing one gigawatt of solar for low to middle-income households by 2020. And chief among the announcements is the issuance of new guidance for property-assessed clean energy (PACE) financing that will allow mortgage insurance to now be issued by the Federal Housing Administration and the Veterans Administration, rather than through the Federal National Mortgage Association and the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Association, which ran into roadblocks with PACE loans six years ago.

Cutting through the alphabet soup of federal agencies, the bottom line is that more Americans will now be able to choose solar and private industry can seize the opportunity to build more solar systems. Read More…

Obama’s New Energy Initiative Another Win for Solar

Las Vegas goes solar: good news for some, bad for others

Las Vegas this week became the home of the largest solar installation in the nation, with sun-harnessing panels stretching across 28 acres of rooftop space covering the sprawling Mandalay Bay Events Center.

The electricity produced by the 26,000 panels, which began to be installed in 2014, would cover the average annual energy usage of 1,340 US homes, according to MGM Resorts International, which operates the convention center. For the energy-intensive Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino complex, the solar system, at full production, will cover a quarter of its energy needs.

MGM is among several of Nevada’s largest casino companies to have committed to powering some of their operations with solar, a plentiful resource in sun-soaked Nevada. Wynn Resorts and Las Vegas Sands also have announced plans to buy and produce more renewable energy for their hotels. Read More…

Las Vegas goes solar: good news for some, bad for others

Faster Rooftop Solar Growth to Cut Demand From Biggest U.S. Grid

Rooftop-solar panels are being installed in the region covered by the biggest U.S. power grid at a faster pace than expected. That will accelerate the shift away from large generators.

Distributed solar generation on the grid managed by PJM Interconnection LLC, which serves more than 61 million people in the East, jumped 30 percent in April from a year earlier. That rate of growth will likely continue with the extension of tax credits, CreditSights Inc. said in a report Friday. PJM previously forecast that installations would climb by 31 percent this year before slowing to 18 percent in 2017 and 12 percent in 2018.

The rise of solar means that the grid operator may need to secure less supply to meet needs on the hottest days of the year, cutting payouts to owners of nuclear, natural gas and coal plants. Households are going solar as companies like SolarCity Corp. make a big push in parts of the mid-Atlantic states to take advantage of state initiatives. Read More…

Faster Rooftop Solar Growth to Cut Demand From Biggest U.S. Grid

जोधपुर : देश की पहली सोलर ट्रेन का संचालन शुरू

जोधपुर : देश की पहली सोलर ट्रेन का संचालन शुरू

सौर ऊर्जा से चलता है अंतरिक्ष यान जूनो

सौर ऊर्जा से चलता है अंतरिक्ष यान जूनो

World Bank deal will boost Solar Globally

The World Bank Group today signed an agreement with the International Solar Alliance (ISA), consisting of 121 countries led by India, to collaborate on increasing solar energy use around the world, with the goal of mobilizing $1 trillion in investments by 2030.

The agreement signed in the presence of Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, Union Minister of State with Independent charge for Power, Coal, New and Renewable Energy Piyush Goyal and World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim establishes the World Bank Group as a financial partner for the ISA and sees the institution as using its global development network, global knowledge and financing capacity to promote the use of solar energy.

The World Bank also announced that it planned to provide more than $1 billion to support India’s ambitious initiatives to expand solar through investments in solar generation. The World Bank-supported projects under preparation include solar rooftop technology, infrastructure for solar parks, bringing innovative solar and hybrid technologies to market, and transmission lines for solar-rich states. These solar investments for India combined would be the Bank’s largest financing of solar for any country in the world to date.

“India’s plans to virtually triple the share of renewable energy by 2030 will both transform the country’s energy supply and have far-reaching global implications in the fight against climate change,” said World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim. “Prime Minister Modi’s personal commitment toward renewable energy, particularly solar, is the driving force behind these investments. The World Bank Group will do all it can to help India meet its ambitious targets, especially around scaling up solar energy.”

Kim said he also hoped the signing of the agreement with the ISA would help mobilize a global movement toward a climate-friendly future.

As part of the agreement, the Bank Group will develop a roadmap to mobilize financing for development and deployment of affordable solar energy, and work with other multilateral development banks and  financial institutions to develop financing instruments to support solar energy development.

In keeping with the Bank’s commitment to support India’s solar energy program, the Government of India and the World Bank today signed an agreement for the $625 million Grid Connected Rooftop Solar Program. The project will finance the installation of at least 400 MW of solar Photovoltaic (PV) installations that will provide clean, renewable energy, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by displacing thermal generation. The development of a $200 million Shared Infrastructure for Solar Parks Project under a public-private partnership model is also under preparation. The Bank’s support for India’s solar projects will increase the availability of financing, introduce new technologies, build capacity for solar rooftop units and enable the development of common infrastructure, which will support privately developed solar parks in a number of states across India.

International Finance Corporation (IFC), the Bank Group’s private sector arm, was one of the earliest financiers of wind and solar projects in India, and in fact helped develop the country’s first grid-connected solar power project. IFC is also supporting the government of Madhya Pradesh to set up the 750-MW Rewa ultra-mega solar power project, which will be the largest single-site solar power project in the world.

The ISA was launched at the UN Climate Change Conference in Paris on 30 November by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and French President Francois Hollande.

India is the largest client of the World Bank Group. Between 2015 and 2016, the Group lent around $4.8 billion to India.  This includes $2.8 billion from the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), $1.0 billion from the International Development Association (IDA) and approximately $1.0 billion in investments from the International Finance Corporation (IFC).  As of June 2016, total IBRD and IDA net commitments stood at $27 billion (IBRD $16 billion, IDA $11 billion) across 95 projects. At the end of May 2016, IFC’s India portfolio contained 248 projects, amounting to a committed and disbursed exposure of approximately $4.4 billion. Read More…

World Bank deal will boost Solar Globally

Here comes the sun: US solar power market hits all-time high

Solar energy in the US has had a rocky existence. Ever since Ronald Reagan symbolically removed Jimmy Carter’s solar panels from the White House roof in 1986, federal policy has been unpredictable, such that manufacturers and consumers could never depend on reliable incentives to produce and install solar energy systems.

Remarkably, the US solar energy industry is now entering what may be its most prosperous decade ever, thanks to a new wave of federal and state policies and positive economics in the industry, both at home and abroad.

“I think it will actually be bigger than people are projecting,” says Jigar Shah, president and co-founder of Generate Capital, a clean energy investment firm based in San Francisco. “The solar industry is booming right now.” Read More…

Here comes the sun: US solar power market hits all-time high