What Changed In The Solar Industry In June & July?

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Complementing our update on key changes in the electric vehicle industry in June and July, below are highly notable news items from the solar energy and energy storage industries in June and July. Note that this does not include EV battery news, which is in the article linked above.

Latin America will be getting its first combined CSP–PV solar power plant. Naturally, it will be in hot solar market Chile.

SunExchange & Powerhive partnered to bring solar power to 175,000 Kenyans.

Japan’s TEPCO announced it is aiming to develop 6–7 GW of renewable power to move away from nuclear.

Portugal will be getting 31 new solar power plants totaling 1 GW of capacity by 2021.

India’s largest solar power tender to date, meanwhile, landed the lowest solar bids in the country to date. Acme Solar placed the lowest bid, Rs 2.44/kWh (3.55¢/kWh), and Azure Power secured a contract at Rs 2.53/kWh (3.69¢/kWh).

A record-low US solar power price was also set, 2.155¢ per kWh (with an escalator) for a project in Nevada. That was right after a US record-low solar price bid in Arizona.

Sydney, Australia, started its massive clean energy virtual power plant — 1,600 solar power installations coupled with 500 kWh of Tesla Powerpack battery installations.

A solar power program for renters and landlords was also launched in Moreland, Australia.

Small-scale solar is expected to grow strongly in the EU thanks to details in a new legally binding EU-wide target of 32% renewable energy by 2030.

SunPower unleashed a new solar + storage offering.

Sunrun expanded its solar as a service and energy storage offerings in Florida.

Tesla laid off 9% of its staff, many of them in the solar & energy storage side of the business, including a dozen SolarCity facilities across 9 states.

Genex Power secured financing for a 520 MW Australian solar PV & pumped-hydro project.

Residential battery storage is surging in the US, especially in California and Hawaii.

A Tesla Powerwall network in Vermont saved Green Mountain Power $500,000 during a recent heatwave.

Irvine Ranch Water District estimated that a new Tesla Powerpack installation would save $500,000 per year.

Tesla debuted its Grid Controller in Samoa as part of the effort there to bring the country to 100% renewables.

Going much bigger, California utility PG&E proposed a massive 730 MWh, 567.5 MW battery storage project.

SDG&E, another California utility, approved energy storage projects that double its utility-scale energy storage capacity.

A new US DOE loan program provides $2 billion for renewable energy projects on tribals lands. Don’t get too confused, this was approved in the Obama years. However, the the surprising plus side, the funding was cleared in 2017.