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Regional Markets

China

Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region

China Development Bank Energy (CDB Energy) has released the auction results for the 40MWp photovoltaic module procurement, which is for its Ningxia Yongning Photovoltaic Project (2nd round).

There are 10 companies that placed their bids. The average bid price of the 1st phase was US$0.2412 /watt (RMB 1.695/watt). And the average bid price of the 2nd phase was US$0.2391 /watt (RMB 1.68 /watt).

Zhejiang Province

Zhejiang Communications Investment Group has launched a tender for the 80 MW PV inverters.

The tender documents can be obtained from February 19 to February 25

The deadline for bid submission and releasing the auction results is March 11.

Germany

The Bundesnetzagentur, Germany’s Federal Network Agency has released the auction results. As pv magazine has reported, the total PV generation capacity of 100.6 MW was allocated in the latest tender, while the agency has received 493 MW worth of project proposals.

The lowest successful bid was US$0.0385 /kWh (€0.0355 /kWh), while the highest was US$0.0564 /kWh (€0.0521 /kWh).

India

Waaree Group, the solar module manufacturer from Mumbai, has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Gujarat government to establish a US$153 million (Rs 11 billion) cell and module factory in the state.

The manufacturer has already built 2 solar module factories in Surat city and a town called Umargam in the state of Gujarat.

The new plant promises more jobs and could decrease the unemployment rate among the local young people.

USA

Wind resilience is getting more attention lately. Rocky Mountain Institute (RM) is partnering up with Clinton Foundation and FCX to find out why some solar installations can survive hurricanes or other extreme climate events, while others were damaged beyond repair.

Their new report Solar Under Storm II has demonstrated the possibility to survive extreme weather and how to replicate the success of the solar farms that remain unscathed.

Companies

Google

Google’s parent company Alphabet is ending its airborne wind power project Makani kites, which develops wind turbines that could be operational in the air. This means wind energy resources that are located in less geographically accessible areas and, therefore, less economically viable to harness could be utilized.

However, the newly appointed CEO Sundar Pichai is facing the difficult task of aborting Alphabet’s projects that are bleeding money.

Makani is the first project that got axed since Alphabet founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin have relinquished their control of the company. More projects are rumored to meet the same fate.

Hanwha Solutions

South Korea’s Hanwha Solutions, which is part of Hanwha Group, has officially announced its plan to leave the polysilicon manufacturing sector. The termination process will be completed by February 2021.

LONGi

LONGi has just announced that its wholly-owned subsidiary LONGi Leye intends to acquire 100% of Ningbo Yize New Energy’s (“Ningbo Yize”) equity in cash on February 23. Ningbo Yize is specialized in the R&D and production of PV cells and modules.

The preliminary price is set at US$253.3 million (RMB 1.78 billion).

Prior to this announcement, Jiangsu Akcome has just announced that it has terminated the acquisition of Ningbo Yize. The price was also US$253.3 million (RMB 1.78 billion).