Solar Power

Singapore-based solar energy provider, Sunseap Group, has announced that Malaysia’s Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB) Renewables will be buying a 39% stake in its five solar rooftop projects in Vietnam.

The projects in southern Vietnam with a total capacity of 21.6MW peak were completed in December 2020 under Vietnam Electricity’s (EVN) Feed-In-Tariff 2 programme, designed to promote investments in renewable energy sources by guaranteeing producers an above-market rate.

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All five plants have a 20-year Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) with state-owned EVN to supply clean energy to Vietnam’s national grid at a feed-in-tariff of US$0.0838/kWh.

Sunseap currently holds a 90% stake in the five projects. After the acquisition is completed by the first quarter of this year, Sunseap will have its shareholding reduced to 51% while Sun Times Energy Joint Stock Company, an existing shareholder, will continue to own 10% of the equity interest.

Mr Frank Phuan, CEO of Sunseap, said: “This transaction marks the beginning of a partnership with TNB which will pave the way for a long-term business relationship between Sunseap and Malaysia’s leading utility company and TNB’s expansion into regional solar industry.

“Sunseap has invested heavily in Vietnam and possesses a significant presence and experience in the local market. We are confident of being able to tap more opportunities for regional collaboration around renewables.”

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TNB’s president and CEO, Datuk Ir. Baharin bin Din said: “This acquisition will serve as a beachhead for TNB to establish a local presence in Vietnam and expand into the rapidly growing RE and utility market in Vietnam. This acquisition builds on our earlier Malaysia-Singapore cross-border collaboration with Sunseap and demonstrates our commitment to transforming TNB into a regional RE and utility player.”

Sunseap and Tenaga have also announced their intention to form a joint venture to participate in a tender for a Singapore government’s two-year trial to import 100MW of electricity from Malaysia.

• Paul Constant is a writer at Civic Ventures and a frequent cohost of the “Pitchfork Economics” podcast with Nick Hanauer and David Goldstein.
• In the latest episode, Hanauer and guest host Jessyn Farrell spoke with Cornell law professor Saule Omarova about economic innovation in the US.
• Omarova is a proponent of a new, 21st-century version of an agency that helped get the US out of the Great Depression.
• Visit the Business section of Insider for more stories.

In this week’s episode of “Pitchfork Economics,” co-host Nick Hanauer points out that the United States doesn’t really have an industrial policy. Other nations intentionally establish suites of economic, regulatory, and fiscal policies which direct their industrial sectors into specific fields, focus manufacturing into new technologies, and discourage harmful corporate behavior such as environmentally unsound investments. Over the last 40 years, America’s leaders have largely left the industrial sector alone to govern itself. 

That hands-off approach is responsible for some disastrous economic results for the United States. Case in point: Solar cells were created in the United States, and many of the world’s leading solar power experts live here, but Hanauer says that “at some point it became staggeringly obvious” to Chinese leaders that cheap and abundant solar cells “would be enormously useful to the economy and the world, and that having a national competence and advantage in making them would be a good thing.” They directed Chinese manufacturers toward “the goal of building scale and dominance in photovoltaic cells.”

Here in the United States, our leaders either didn’t grasp the growing importance of solar power in a world that was struggling to respond to climate change, or they simply believed that the free market would fill that void. The results speak for themselves: As Larry Beinhart notes for Al Jazeera, “seven of the world’s top 11 solar panel manufacturers are now in mainland China.” 

The complexities of the free market

It should be clear by now that simply allowing the free market to blindly flail around in search of short-term profitability is no way to build an economic future. And America’s cultural insistence on record quarterly corporate profits is a big reason why our infrastructure has become a global laughingstock.

Hanauer and co-host Jessyn Farrell talk with Saule Omarova, the Beth and Marc Goldberg professor of law at Cornell Law School, who has formulated an intriguing new idea to guide American industrial policy even while honoring our national preference for fierce independence.

Omarova is a proponent of a National Investment Authority (NIA), a 21st-century take on the New Deal’s Reconstruction Finance Corporation, which invested money in businesses and products that helped build our way out of the Great Depression.

When it comes to building infrastructure in America, Omarova explains, “it’s really difficult to figure out which tasks specifically should be left to the private market and which tasks should be left to the government.” This leaves what she calls a “dead zone” where some of our most embarrassing failures as a nation have landed — our failure to get broadband and good medical care to rural areas, our inability to build the same kind of inter-city train network that Europe and much of Asia enjoys.

The NIA, Omarova says, would be “an institution that can step into that dead zone, and that is designed to be a hybrid” between the free market and the federal government. “It’s not hamstrung by the short-term profit obsession,” the way that shareholder-driven companies are, she explained. “It has longer time horizons and it has vast resources, and it has its eyes on the public benefit and the public interests first and foremost.”

“But at the same time, unlike the existing government institutions,” the NIA would be “not so constrained by the immediate vagaries of budgetary politics, so it can start working alongside other private market actors and other public government agencies in order to get those projects financed, planned, designed, and implemented.” 

Blending government and free market perks

Just as the NIA would straddle the void between public ownership and private enterprise, Omarova says the structure of the NIA itself would need to be a unique blend of government and free market: While a federal board would oversee the system, “the actual operations will be conducted by its subsidiaries, the federal government-owned specialty charter corporations.”

So consider the solar cell example, in which China invested in an expensive and imperfect technology and eventually became the world leader in a burgeoning clean energy sector. The NIA could have directed American companies toward solar power through an aggressively targeted suite of tax incentives to encourage the building of manufacturing plants and the investment of research and development dollars. 

The US government already performs this kind of incentivization through tax cuts — albeit in a much slower, more limited way. “But at the same time,” Omarova said, “why not have the NIA acting through one of its subsidiaries to become a co-investor, a controlling co-investor, or an equity holder in a company that actually does that?”

By giving the American people a seat at the boardroom table in exchange for taxpayer investments, the NIA might be able to direct manufacturing plants to Michigan, or West Virginia, or other economically depressed locations “where that plant will actually have far-reaching, very important collateral benefits to the economy and to the society as a whole.”

A renewed chance for rapid growth

By placing solar panel manufacturing plants in parts of the country that have been left behind over the last few decades, we’d see rapid job growth, renewed economic vigor, and the much-needed bolstering of infrastructure like clean water and good internet connection speeds. 

Omarova’s idea doesn’t put government in the driver’s seats of corporations so much as it uses government as the pipes through which free enterprise flows, directing that economic energy to where it can do the most good.

The NIA is a complex idea, one that’s literally never been attempted in American history. The idea of investing in future-forward industries creates many opportunities for failure. But when we take a step back and see what 40 years of totally free markets has done to our global reputation as an economic leader, it becomes obvious that a big, bold idea is necessary if we’re going to save the United States from our own worst economic impulses.

The dream began in 1955, with a tiny, toylike creation called the “Sunmobile.” Built from balsa wood and hobby shop tires, it was just 15 inches long. The 12 selenium solar cells that decorated its exterior produced less horsepower than an actual horse. But it was proof of a concept: Sunlight alone can make a vehicle run.

The years went on, and the dream evolved into a converted vintage buggy with solar panels on its roof. Then a glorified bicycle, a retiree’s garage project, a racecar that crossed the Mojave Desert at 51 miles per hour.

It is a dream of perpetual motion. Of travel that doesn’t do damage to the planet. Of journeys that last as long as the sun shines.

There are problems with this dream, big ones. Clouds come. Night falls. The laws of physics limit how efficiently solar panels can turn light into energy.

But one start-up claims it has overcome those problems. Now, its founders say, the dream can be yours for as little as $25,900.

Aptera Motors, a California company whose name comes from the ancient Greek for “wingless,” is rolling out the first mass-produced solar car this year. It’s a three-wheel, ultra-aerodynamic electric vehicle covered in 34 square feet of solar cells. The car is so efficient that, on a clear day, those cells alone could provide enough energy to drive about 40 miles — more than twice the distance of the average American’s commute.

The Aptera must undergo safety tests before the company can begin distribution, which it hopes to do by the end of this year. Even then, it’s not clear that consumers will want to buy something that looks like a cross between the Batmobile and a beetle. The shadow of an initial attempt, which ended in bankruptcy, hangs over the founders as they gear up to launch their new product.

But the Aptera’s creators, Chris Anthony and Steve Fambro, think the world needs a car like theirs. Transportation is the largest source of planet-warming pollution in the United States. The Biden administration has made it a priority to reduce vehicle emissions, and several major automakers have pledged to phase out cars and light trucks with internal combustion engines.

After years of dreaming, maybe the time for driving on sunshine is finally here.

– – –

Anthony and Fambro didn’t set out to build a vehicle that could run on solar power. They just wanted to make a more efficient car.

Burning gasoline, it turns out, is not a very efficient way to travel; as much as four-fifths of the energy produced by an internal combustion engine is lost as heat, wasted overcoming wind resistance or used up by fuel pumps and other components, according to Energy Department data.

All-electric vehicles perform much better, but they’re still not perfect. About 10 percent of the energy that goes into them is lost converting alternating current from the electrical grid into direct current for the battery. Inefficiencies in the drive system eat up another 20%, and the car must still deal with wind resistance and friction, through regenerative braking systems can reduce some waste.

From top to wheels, the Aptera is designed to eliminate as much waste as possible. Its creators say the car is 13 times more efficient than a gas-powered pickup truck and four times more efficient than the average electric vehicle. At least 90% of the power produced by the Aptera’s solar panels goes toward making the vehicle move, the company says.

– – –

The Aptera can be recharged the same way a standard electric vehicle is fueled — by simply plugging it into an outlet. Its extreme efficiency means the car can go 150 miles after just 15 minutes at an ordinary charging station.

But an average electric car would need a solar panel “the size of a semi truck” to go farther than a few miles, Fambro said. Meanwhile, a relatively small number of solar cells can propel the Aptera.

“It only works if you have a super-efficient vehicle,” Fambro said. But once he and Anthony realized how far the sun alone could take them, “there was no other plan than to make it a solar vehicle.”

– – –

When the first solar vehicle, the tiny Sunmobile, debuted at a General Motors trade show 65 years ago, even its inventors were skeptical about its prospects. GM officials told the magazine Popular Mechanics their creation was of “no practical application to the automotive industry at present.”

But that challenge was exactly what appealed to Danish adventurer Hans Tholstrup. Feeling guilty for his fossil-fuel guzzling exploits — flying around the world, driving a speedboat around Australia — he wanted to do something to benefit the planet.

In 1982, Tholstrup and racecar driver Larry Perkins unveiled “the Quiet Achiever” — a boat-shaped, single-driver construction topped by a 90-square-foot solar array. A tiller served as the steering system, and the wheels and brakes were borrowed from a bicycle. Eating orange slices to stay hydrated and camping by the side of the road, they took 20 days to drive 2,560 miles across the Australian continent. Their average speed was 15 miles per hour.

Tom Snooks, the project’s coordinator, recalled Tholstrup comparing the journey to the flight of the Kittyhawk: impractical but inspirational, and a sign of advances to come. “If it will motivate just one more idea and thought in the development of solar power,” Tholstrup said, “then the venture will have been well worthwhile.”

In 1987, Tholstrup launched the “World Solar Challenge” to encourage others to improve upon his record. Soon solar races were springing up around the globe, attracting competition from car manufacturers and high school students alike. The vehicles evolved from Tholstrup’s “bathtub on wheels” to bullet shapes to three-wheeled cars with curved, winglike solar arrays. By 2013 the World Solar Challenge introduced a “cruiser class” competition in an effort to spur development of more commercially viable vehicles.

“It makes for a really fun design challenge,” said University of Michigan mechanical engineer Neil Dasgupta, faculty adviser to the school’s highly decorated solar car team. “And we’ve made tremendous advances.”

The team’s 2017 vehicle, which placed second in the World Solar Challenge, weighed just 420 pounds and averaged almost 50 miles per hour.

Solar cars have to be small and sleek, Dasgupta explained, because of inefficiencies in solar panels. Photovoltaic cells are limited in what wavelengths they can turn into electricity. They don’t perform well when they get hot. Even the best solar panels only convert about 23% of the sunlight that hits them into energy. You can get much more power more quickly by simply plugging into a charging station.

Total reliance on solar power also poses practical problems. It means the car can’t be parked in a garage or under a tree. Once the battery is full, any additional energy that hits the solar panels is lost.

“This is a niche kind of thing,” said Timothy Lipman, co-director of the Transportation Sustainability Research Center at the University of California at Berkeley. The Aptera, which seats two, wouldn’t work for a large family, a commuter in cloudy Seattle, a plumber who has to lug around equipment.

Advances in solar cars could benefit the broader automotive industry, Lipman said. They might lead to the development of lighter materials and make the case for greater efficiency in electric vehicles. Manufacturers could add solar panels to augment car batteries. Maybe the technology will find use at national parks and remote military installations.

But Lipman thinks it will be difficult for sun-powered vehicles to find broad commercial success. A Chinese manufacturer was still seeking funding to produce its prototype when it ran into financial problems last year. The Dutch champions of the first “cruiser class” race in the World Solar Challenge launched their own start-up, Lightyear One, and aim to start deliveries of their large, four-wheel hatchback at the end of this year. Still, the Lightyear car’s price tag, about $180,000, puts it out of reach of most buyers.

Anthony and Fambro know how easy it is to fail. Four years after founding Aptera in 2006, they left the venture amid disagreement with other leadership — auto industry veterans who wanted to build a traditional four-wheeled vehicle to qualify for federal loans. But the money never materialized. The company was liquidated in 2011, and its intellectual property sold.

Business analysts treated the collapse as a case study in the perils of launching an automotive start-up. Cars are more expensive to make than software. Federal regulations are difficult to navigate. Consumers are wary of change.

But Aptera’s inventors took a different lesson from that experience: “The traditional design process doesn’t allow for breakthroughs,” Fambro said. “Because anything that’s a breakthrough is seen as something that’s polarizing, and they don’t allow polarizing things to exit the research clinic.”

If the Aptera was going to succeed, they decided, they couldn’t make compromises to satisfy a federal requirement or a market-research firm’s recommendation. They had to be willing to be different.

“That’s the march of technology,” Anthony said, before paraphrasing Apple founder Steve Jobs. “People don’t know what they need until you show it to them.”

– – –

After a decade spent pursuing other ventures, Aptera’s creators bought back the company in 2019 and launched a crowdfunding campaign to restart development.

Their timing was good. Electric batteries had gotten much cheaper and lighter. Solar cells had become more efficient. Advances in computing enabled the inventors to simulate the vehicles on their desktops, speeding up the design process. Even the constraints imposed by the coronavirus pandemic spurred creativity, Anthony said.

When Aptera began taking preorders last December, it sold out of its planned first batch of 330 vehicles in 24 hours. Almost 7,500 people have now put down deposits for a car.

One of them was Tyler Perkins, the 27-year-old assistant manager of a small airport in Oklahoma City. A technology buff who had been following the company since he was a teenager, he said he was drawn to the Aptera’s “funky, radical design” and wanted to make a hopeful bet on tomorrow.

“They’re actually like, ‘let’s build a futuristic car, because if we don’t do it no one will,’ ” Perkins said. “And that’s how the future happens.”

Concern about climate change already motivated Perkins to become a vegan and drive a hybrid. He wanted to switch to an electric vehicle, but his apartment building offers no charging station. Then the Aptera came on the market. Even without federal tax credits (which only go to four-wheeled electric vehicles) it costs almost $10,000 less than other EVs. Sure it’s small, but all he needs is space for himself and his camping gear.

“I think it will work great for me,” Perkins said, “as someone who is trying to be as efficient as possible and have a minimal impact on the environment.”

Not every Aptera fan fits the stereotype of an avid environmentalist. Nick Field, a 36-year-old accountant in London, is drawn more to the car’s long range and high performance; it can go from 0 to 60 mph in 3.5 seconds and hit top speeds of 110 mph. As far as he’s concerned, the Aptera’s low climate impact is just a fringe benefit.

“I’m in the category of, ‘I want to enjoy my life,’ ” Field said. “I just like fast cars. . . . I think it’s really cool.”

Anthony acknowledged that the Aptera is not for everyone. But it has more appeal than its skeptics give it credit for, he said. The car’s high efficiency means it puts less demand on the grid than ordinary electric vehicles. It could be ideal for delivery trucks and Postal Service vehicles, which don’t travel far and spend lots of time idling. Outdoor enthusiasts will probably like the option to venture far from charging infrastructure without worrying about fuel. And the notion of parking an Aptera in the sun and returning to a car that has more fuel than when you left it — free, clean fuel — is a powerful idea at a time when the world is looking for transformation.

“We see solar as the main driver of our business,” Anthony said. “It enables so many things.”

He considered the dreamers who first conceived of solar cars: Tholstrup subsisting on orange slices during his cross-continent journey, engineering students building racecars after school. He thought about the early developers of electric vehicles, who had faith in a future that didn’t run on gas. He remembered the investors who shied away from the Aptera’s first incarnation, saying “who is going to buy your weird egg-shaped creation?”

“It’s the same thing with anybody who does anything first,” Anthony said. “It’s always: Why would you do that?”

When Aptera hits the road, he’ll have his answer.

A bill that would allow electricity customers in New Mexico to tap into local solar power facilities passed on the New Mexico Senate Floor Thursday on a 27-14 across party lines.

Senate Bill 84, known as the Community Solar Act would establish a program in New Mexico intended to allow low-income and renting customers to opt into solar generation from arrays known as “solar gardens” – smaller than utility scale but larger than residential panels.

The program would require up to 10 subscribers before a facility could be built and limit generation to 5 megawatts per year and 100 MW for the entire program.

More:Community solar bill advances to New Mexico Senate Floor amid opposition from utilities

A single megawatt could power about 250 New Mexico homes, per data from the Solar Energy Industry Association.

NEW ORLEANS — Since the City of New Orleans introduced the Solar for All NOLA program one year ago, hundreds of New Orleans homeowners and businesses are now enjoying the benefits of solar energy. Solar for All NOLA is a clean energy initiative available to all New Orleans homeowners and small businesses through the financial and resiliency benefits of rooftop solar.

Solar for All NOLA underscores Mayor LaToya Cantrell’s commitment to reduce energy costs for lower-income families and those on fixed incomes, while creating quality jobs and making the city more climate resilient. Solar was the fastest growing source of new jobs in the U.S. before the COVID-19 pandemic and is expected to be a major player in the recovery of New Orleans’ economy.

 

As Solar For All NOLA enters its second year, here are a few highlights from 2020:

• GOING GREEN: More than 450 New Orleans homeowners and businesses took the opportunity to lower their energy costs through rooftop solar and energy efficiency.
• SOLAR SAVINGS: Customers enjoyed more than $2.4 million in annual savings, an average savings of $532 per customer, due to rooftop solar and energy efficiency.
• JOB CREATION: Louisiana now has more than 3,300 solar jobs, with nearly 1,300 solar jobs in the metro New Orleans area alone. Since 2015, the solar industry nationwide has grown over 200%.

The Solar for All NOLA 2021 initiative is being led by the Mayor’s Fund, Forward Together New Orleans (FTNO), which is a local nonprofit dedicated to making New Orleans a fairer, more inclusive place by forging partnerships between community organizations and the business and philanthropic sectors. FTNO is working with two respected local solar businesses, PosiGen Solar and Solar Alternatives, to provide free solar evaluations to all homeowners and small business owners interested in seeing if clean energy can save them money on their utility bills. Given the fact that energy costs have started to go up significantly, it’s more important than ever that homeowners and small businesses at least get a free evaluation to see if they can save money with local power.

 

“We are very proud of how well the Solar For All NOLA program did in its first year, during what was obviously a very challenging year,” said Mayor Cantrell. “We have all spent more time in our homes in the past year than any of us could have imagined, and we are proud to be able to offer our citizens the opportunity to not only do the right thing for their household budget, but also the right thing for the environment. Programs like the one provided by PosiGen and Solar Alternatives are helping to make housing more affordable and put New Orleans at the forefront of smart, creative, clean energy.”

 

“PosiGen’s mission is to make solar available to everyone,” said Tom Neyhart, PosiGen CEO. “The pandemic has proven to us that it’s more important than ever that families and retirees can get their energy costs under control. We are happy to provide that opportunity through Solar for All NOLA. Our goal is to help as many people as possible, and because we focus on low-to-moderate income homeowners, we know we are making an impact on deserving families.”

 

“New Orleans has been a leader in solar energy for almost a decade, and the Solar for All NOLA program will help the city reach all residents with the opportunity to save energy and help the environment at the same time,” said Jeffrey Cantin, President of Solar Alternatives.

 

Importantly, the campaign makes it possible for most customers to go solar at no up-front cost to them. Solar for All NOLA offers 100% of solar feasible homeowners a financing solution, with either a no-money-down, no-credit requirement solar lease with energy efficiency upgrades, or traditional financing for eligible homeowners and small businesses who wish to purchase their system. The unique accessibility of this campaign brings solar and energy efficiency to homeowners who are left out of traditional programs and who can benefit the most from energy savings.

 

Interested customers can contact the PosiGen and Solar Alternative teams directly to sign up for a no-cost solar home or business assessment, or they can utilize Forward Together New Orleans staff to assist them with this service. For more information, visit www.solarforallnola.com or call (844) 78-SOLAR.

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Special developments are usually approved in-house by the county government, applying zoning regulations to a development seeking approval, county spokesperson Cindy Mumby said. A special exception, though, makes it a more public process that can make its way to the county council, sitting as the Board of Appeals, for a vote if a case is appealed.

Facebook, which has pledged to support all of its operations with renewable energy, has spurred the development of another solar energy farm in Mississippi to help support the two Facebook data centers in the Tennessee Valley.

The Tennessee Valley Authority announced Thursday that through its Green Invest program Facebook has agreed to buy the energy from its fourth solar farm. The newest project is a 150-megawatt solar and 50-megawatt battery storage facility in Lowndes County, Mississippi which is being developed by the Florida-based Origis Energy.

Origis, through a long-term power purchase agreement with TVA that was signed on Facebook’s behalf, will own and operate the plant. The project will create more than 250 construction jobs, with additional employment for 3-5 full-time operations and maintenance staff. Origis will complete the facility in late 2023, pending environmental reviews.

“This is our second utility-scale solar facility in Mississippi with TVA, and it demonstrates the success of Green Invest in connecting local communities, private business and public power through renewable energy,” said Vanhee, Origis Energy chief commercial officer and chief procurement officer.

Under the Green Invest program, TVA allows its customers to be supplied with electricity generated entirely from solar, wind or other renewable energy sources and pay the effective costs for such generation. Most of the new solar farms are being built by private developers and sold to TVA, which in turn delivers the power to companies participating in the Green Invest program.

TVA has obtained agreements so far for 2,139 megawatts of solar generation through the Green Invest program, which is involved in $1.4 billion of business development from companies wanting only renewable power, TVA spokesman Scott Fiedler said.

“Our region is ready for companies who want to use renewable energy to achieve their sustainability goals,” said Chris Hansen, TVA vice president of origination and renewables. “Green Invest is more than a renewables program; when businesses relocate here, jobs are created and people can find work – revitalizing both rural and urban communities.”

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The potential for solar energy in Croatia is estimated at 6.8 GW, of which 5.3 GW for utility-scale photovoltaic plants and 1.5 GW for rooftop solar systems.

Guidelines for encouraging citizens and entrepreneurs to install rooftop solar power plants, prepared by the energy transition council of Croatian President Zoran Milanović, have provided proposals for changing the inadequate regulatory framework, which is currently the main obstacle to unlocking this potential.

The guidelines were presented to Minister of Economy and Sustainable Development Tomislav Ćorić, at a meeting attended by President Zoran Milanović and members of the council.

The guidelines could be used for preparing amendments to the law on renewable energy and the electricity market that are currently being drafted

The concept is quite clear – the production of electricity on the roofs of thousands of houses in Croatia, or industrial facilities, said Ćorić.

This could be done through the law on renewable energy sources and the law on the electricity market, which will be sent to the Croatian parliament in the coming months.

The guidelines identify the main obstacles in the implementation of projects for the installation of integrated solar power plants, and propose legislative amendments in order to remove them.

Ćorić said that a number of suppliers are offering co-financing for the installation of solar panels, a trend that will be increasingly significant.

Croatia is moving towards renewable energy and that shift is irrevocable, but it must proceed as quickly as possible, according to him.

By 2050, every second EU citizen will produce electricity for self-consumption

President Zoran Milanović said that the government is drafting a law, and that’s why the guidelines are being presented now, to see how these ideas can be incorporated into the law, while Julije Domac, the president’s special adviser on energy and climate and chair of the council, said the ministry and the president’s council have similar views on how to improve things.

According to EU regulations and plans, by the end of 2050, one out of two EU citizens will produce energy for self-consumption, and Croatia owes its citizens the opportunity to be equal with all EU citizens, he said.

The average share of solar in the electricity mix in the EU is 5%, compared with Croatia’s 0.4%

According to the guidelines, Croatia has all the natural prerequisites to be one of the most significant producers of solar energy in the EU, however, this chance has been missed because of an uninspiring legislative framework.

The installed capacity of solar PV plants is 100 MW, and the plan is to increase it to 1 GW

Electricity from solar power plants in the EU accounts on average for 5% of the total electricity produced, while in Croatia this share is only 0.4%.

In order to reach the EU average, it is necessary to install at least 800 MW of solar power plants, which is significantly more than the current 100 MW. The National Energy and Climate Plan (NECP) and the energy strategy have already set this target, and the regulation on quotas has increased it to more than 1 GW, according to the guidelines.

Investments in the power grid are also needed

According to the document, taking into account the country’s solar potential and in view of the limitations in terms of roof surface area and structure, the contracted capacity of facilities, and the profile of electricity consumption, we can assume that it is possible to have at least about 1.5 GW of installed solar power plants with an acceptable impact on the electricity grid, provided that prior research and investments in the adaptation of the network are done, since the produced electricity would, for the most part, be consumed on-site.

The potential stated in the analysis for the preparation of the energy strategy is estimated at around 5.3 GW for utility-scale systems and around 1.5 MW for rooftop solar systems.

Energy distribution firm Tata Power, in partnership with India Smart Grid Forum and Australian technology firm Power Ledger, has launched a first-of-its-kind peer-to-peer solar energy trading project in Delhi.

Power Ledger has provided its blockchain-enabled technology to facilitate peer-to-peer (P2P) trading of electricity from over 2MW of solar PV between multiple consumers in North Delhi.

This is the first live solar energy trading project in Delhi.

Under the project, an end total of about 150 sites that include Tata Power Delhi Distribution Limited’s (TPDDL’s) locations, as well as their actual customers with solar generation (prosumers) will be using the platform to sell their excess energy to other residential and commercial sites in a dynamic pricing environment, with benefits from P2P energy trades.

Consumers can choose which seller (prosumer) to buy electricity from, with Power Ledger’s blockchain audit trail of energy transactions providing near-time settlement and complete transparency throughout the entire process.

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This project enables development of an integrated ecosystem of grid-connected, distributed energy resources including EV charging stations and Battery Energy Storage Systems that can directly participate in the P2P marketplace.

The project is part of efforts by the companies to accelerate the adoption of renewable energy technologies in India.

The pilot will run through June 2021 to gather information around trading algorithms including dynamic trading.

The results of the pilot will be used to provide regulators with recommendations on how they can promote peer-to-peer energy trading and the growth of rooftop solar PV in India.

This Project is aligned with the:

1. International Solar Alliance: ‘To scale up solar energy, reduce the cost of solar power generation through aggregation of demand for solar finance, technologies, innovation, research and development, and capacity building’. This project will incentivise prosumers by giving them access to the market where they can sell their surplus energy. This will further scale up adoption of grid connected RTPV among customers.
2. National Strategy on Blockchain, MEITY: P2P Energy Trading Project brings the revolutionary blockchain technology to the Indian Power Sector.

Power Ledger co-founder and chairman Dr Jemma Green, said: “India is on a fast-track to a greener power mix with aggressive renewable energy targets that include 100GW of solar energy, of which 40GW is to come from rooftop solar.

“Power Ledger’s partnership with ISGF and a major energy provider like Tata Power-DDL is a major milestone in advancing these ambitious targets and introducing the concept of energy trading to the world’s second-biggest city.”

Mr. Ganesh Srinivasan, CEO, Tata Power-DDL, said, “Tata Power-DDL is focused towards building a ‘Utility of the Future’ and transforming the power distribution space through innovative green technologies, collaborations and initiatives. It is always looking at how it can increase the services it can offer to its consumers. Today, with growing rooftop solar power being available, we believe that peer-to-peer solar power trading can offer customers the flexibility to buy green power from those who have solar power in excess of their own consumption. We are happy to join hands with Power Ledger and ISGF for this first-of-its-kind P2P pilot in the capital city. I believe it will not only pave the way for faster adoption of solar energy trading but will also empower our consumers to become prosumers.”

Mr. Reji Kumar Pillai, president – India Smart Grid Forum, reiterates: “India is about to delicense power distribution business and make open access to retail customers enabling them to buy electricity from anybody from anywhere. In that scenario, blockchain platform for P2P trading of electricity will be a perfect game changer for the clean energy revolution in the country. We have already done another successful pilot project in Uttar Pradesh. The results of these two projects should instill confidence in the regulators to draw appropriate regulations for scaling up of P2P trading of electricity in India.”