Puerto Rico’s energy regulator PREB has released a draft Request for Proposals (RFP) for a minimum of 500MW of renewable power capacity and 250MW of storage in the Caribbean Island. Issued on behalf of Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA), the document pertains to the second of six planned tranches. PREPA is planning to present six tranches of procurement in total over three years as part of its integrated resource plan (IRP), with a cumulative total capacity of 3,750MW of renewables and 1,500MW of energy storage sought.  Contract terms for bidders in Tranche 2 will run between 20-25 years, except for virtual solar panel (VPP), which will have terms of 10-25 years. “PREPA seeks energy resources that can achieve commercial operation in no more than 24 months from the date on which a selected proponent executes a contract, with preference given to those proposals that can achieve commercial operation within a shorter timeframe,” the RFP said.   In February, PREB approved 18 solar projects totalling 845MW in its first tranche of RFPs, launched early last year. It originally sought up to 1GW of renewable capacity and 500MW of storage. Coverage on the storage aspect of Tranche 1 can be found on our sister site Energy-storage.news. PREB will hold a webinar on April 22 to provide an overview of the process. Vendor contact and services information can be found here, with the list update as and when new vendors are available. Puerto Rico has pledged for renewables to meet 20% of its power generation this year, rising to 40% by 2025, 60% by 2040 and 100% by 2050.   The territory has been forced to rebuild its solar energy system over the past few years after a major hurricane in 2017. Consultants from industrial group Siemens urged Puerto Rico’s utility and power regulator to scale up its solar and storage ambitions in 2019 to fortify the island’s battered power grid, suggesting a rollout of 920MW of battery storage by 2023.

Thin film manufacturer First Solar is to supply Nevada Gold Mines (NGM) with 200MW of solar panel to power its activities in the state, as mining companies the world over increasingly look to clean up their operations. Barrick Gold Corporation owned NGM has started engineering works and expects to begin construction in Q3, with First Solar’s thin film modules expected to be delivered in the beginning of Q2 2023. The 200MW solar panel will power 20% of NGM’s operations by 2025, with the company also looking to convert its coal fired power station to natural gas. “The solar power plant will complement the transition of NGM’s coal power plant to a dual fuel process, which will enable it to generate electricity from natural gas, reducing carbon emissions by as much as 50%,” said Barrick group sustainability executive Grant Beringer. With mounting pressure on companies in every sector to clean up their operations following national climate targets, there has been a flurry of activity from mining companies looking to invest in renewable power and shift away from fossil fuels. For example, Australian metals company Fortescue has unveiled plans for a vast renewables hub including up to 3,333MW of solar to power its mining operations in Western Australia, while the South African mining industry is planning to build 3.9GW of renewable projects and storage and mining giant Rio Tinto is looking to deploy an additional 6GW of solar and wind in Australia. NGM said it chose First Solar due to its fair labour practices, investment in American manufacturing and jobs and delivery of “high performance solar panels with the lowest carbon footprint”. PV Tech Premium has recently explored low-carbon US solar manufacturing and how it is increasingly becoming an attractive option for developers and more competitive with China. Also announced today, First Solar will be supplying 750MW of its thin film modules to Origis Energy to use throughout its US operations. 

The Philippines looks set to significantly ramp up its solar deployment, according to Fitch Solutions, which has revised up its forecasts for the country’s non-hydro renewables sector in line with a rapidly-expanding project pipeline and growing regulatory support. Fitch Solutions, which has also revised down its coal forecast for the Philippines amid domestic opposition, said the market’s project pipeline for large-scale solar has grown significantly over the past year, with total solar capacity in the country’s pipeline growing more than ten fold from March 2021. As of March this year, the Philippines had around 13GW of solar system in its project pipeline, up from a paltry 1.3GW in March 2021, with wind power also growing substantially. “We believe the growing investor interests in the renewables sector is largely underpinned by the improving regulatory environment for the sector,” said Fitch Solutions. Indeed, the Philippines’ Department of Energy (DoE) has been developing two important renewable policies –  the Renewable Portfolio Standard and the Green Energy Option –  to encourage market development and is also launching a Green Energy Pricing Programme that will set a ceiling price for renewable energy, helping generators secure favourable power supply agreements. Moreover, it has also set new renewable energy targets in its latest version of the National Renewable Energy Program, with renewables expected to account for 35% of the country’s power mix by 2030 and 50% by 2040. Fitch Solutions now forecasts non-hydro renewables capacity to total 10.2GW by 2031, from an estimated 4GW at the end of 2021, driven largely by wind and solar projects. “This is subject to further upside risks, although we will await the establishment of concrete policy and incentives to achieve growth first,” said Fitch Solutions. Meanwhile, it has also revised down its coal generation forecasts somewhat amid strong opposition and ongoing efforts to reduce the country’s dependence on coal for power generation. Coal generation will continue to grow strongly over the coming years in absolute terms, however, as projects in the current pipeline continue to progress, Fitch Solutions noted.

Major polysilicon and merchant cell producer Tongwei Group is to invest in an additional 32GW of solar cell capacity through a RMB12 billion (US$1.9 billion) investment in partnership with the government of Meishan City, in Sichuan Province, China. The capacity expansion will be conducted in two 16GW phases, Tongwei said, with the company aiming to bring the first phase of the project online by the end of 2023, after which work on the second phase will begin. Tongwei said in a stock statement that the new facility will be built on Qinglong Street, Tianfu New District, Meishan in cooperation with the local government. Tongwei has long held plans to ramp up its cell capacity and at the end of last month, it signed a two-year polysilicon deal with LONGi to supply the module maker with more than 200,000 metric tonnes (MT) of polysilicon. Last year, it also consolidated an agreement with ‘Solar Module Super League’ (SMSL) member JinkoSolar that saw Tongwei secure extra gigawatts of mono wafers through a supply agreement. Last month, Tongwei, which has forecasted for a six-fold increase in net profit in Q1 2022, reported that its revenue had increased by more than 50% in 2021 whilst suggesting that tight material supply meant that high prices were here to stay in the short term. Elsewhere, PV Tech’s head of market research Finlay Colville has mused that Tongwei could become the industry’s leading PV module supplier by 2025 if it pursues a vertically-integrated product strategy that would see it become the sector’s first polysilicon-to-module manufacturing entity.

Renewables investor Aquila European Renewables Income Fund has acquired a 100MWp solar PV portfolio currently in construction in Spain, doubling its portfolio’s current solar PV capacity. Aquila has signed a sale and purchase agreement, valued at around €90 million (US$99.13 million), with additional earn-out payments for a portfolio of two assets in the southern region of Andalusia. The earn-out payments are to be valued at up to 50% of the uplift of any power purchase agreement signed against a reference price agreed between the two parties. The Greco project is expected to be completed by the end of the year, once it receives authorisation from local authorities, and the company estimated its operating life to be 30 years. Ian Nolan, chairman at Aquila, said: “We are pleased to be able to secure another large scale, high quality solar PV project, which dramatically increases our allocation to solar system, in-line with our portfolio targets.” With the acquisition of the project, Aquila will double its solar panel capacity located in Portugal and Spain to 200MWp, and will increase its renewables portfolio by a third to a total of 432MW. Moreover, it is currently seeking to secure a power purchase agreement for the Greco project before it is completed. In 2020, Aquila entered the solar PV market in Portugal with its first acquisition of projects with a 20MWp capacity and last year acquired a 50% in a 60MWp plant in the Alentejo region.

Speaking at the Solar Finance and Investment Europe (SFIE) conference in London, hosted by PV Tech publisher Solar Media in London, Colville said that over the past year, especially since the COP26 climate conference in Glasgow in November, the demand for solar solar panels has increased. growth is unbelievable. "I've never seen such a drastic change in a 12-month period," Colville said. "Right now, everywhere is struggling to get limited supply of solar panels." Demand for solar panels is about 25-30% higher than industry supply, and about 30% of solar panels currently produced never leave China, which means the rest of the world is competing for the remaining 70%, he said. Polysilicon capacity remains an obvious bottleneck. Over the past 18 months, as demand for solar panels and polysilicon has surged, producers have been unable to ramp up capacity sufficiently to meet demand. The situation is further complicated by natural events and energy constraints curbing Chinese production capacity. As a result, Chinese polysilicon producers have hiked prices sharply, leading to an increase in gross operating profit of as much as 70 percent, Colville said. On the other hand, all new polysilicon facilities take around 18 months to be commissioned, which means a long wait with no short-term impact on module prices. For the same reason, new production plants outside China are unlikely to be opened. The 18-month timeframe required for the new polysilicon plant, the huge capital expenditure costs and energy intensity are the main risks facing developers, Colville said. Judging by the time it takes to build factories, prices could plummet, or China could squeeze new entrants out of the market, resulting in losses on the first day of business. Furthermore, these incremental capacity additions are small relative to China's capacity potential and have little impact on the final price of the developer's modules. Meanwhile, the Ukraine war may also put upward pressure on module prices. Increased demand for components to accelerate the development of renewable energy, coupled with a decline in Europe's reliance on Russian natural gas, will push up prices. Increased material costs from conflict could also lead to higher prices. In short, Colville's message to delegates at SFIE was not to expect component prices to drop for at least 18 months, or even two years. In the short term, the price may even rise, but for a while, there will be no material change in the price.

The 50.49KW on grid system solar power generation project of the experimental training building of Anhui Jianshe University's South Campus in Hefei City, Anhui Province, China was successfully on grid.

Guangxi Huadian Liuzhou Liudong New Area Phase II 15MW distributed solar energy system project was successfully connected to the state Grid on March 4. The solar panels of this project are all LONGI 540W Monocrystalline solar panels, and the inverters are HUAWEI 196KW on grid  inverters.  The total scale of the project is planned to be 15MW, and a total of 10 solar roofs will be constructed. After the project is completed, it is expected that the average annual solar energy system will be 14 million kwh, and the carbon dioxide emission will be reduced by about 13,000 tons.