Saturday, 8 August 2026

Commercial photovoltaic (PV) system sales in the Netherlands reached an estimated 843 MW in the first half of 2026, according to pv magazine, against 1,515 MW booked across the whole of last year.

The subsidy framework behind much of that build is due to end. The Dutch government has said it will phase out the SDE++ support scheme in 2027 and replace it with two-way contracts for difference, aligning with EU market reforms, pv magazine reported.

SDE++ is still awarding capacity in the meantime. The most recent round, announced in July, handed out 773 MW of solar spread across 86 projects, according to pv magazine.

Deployment last year ran above 2 GW, lifting cumulative Dutch solar capacity to a little under 30 GW, pv magazine reported. That volume of installed generation is showing up in price formation: the country logged 248 negative price hours over the first half of 2026, according to figures from Datadame cited by pv magazine.

Storage is scaling alongside it. The Dutch storage market is forecast to add around 5 GWh of new systems by the end of 2026, according to pv magazine.

The half-year commercial sales figure of 843 MW sits against a full prior-year base of 1,515 MW, per pv magazine, a comparison that frames the pace of the segment as the net-metering arrangement moves toward its phaseout.

Australian homes and businesses installed 339.2 MW of new rooftop solar in July 2026, according to RenewEconomy.

The monthly figure sat 22 per cent below the all-time record of 432 MW set in April, RenewEconomy reported. It still cleared the long-run trend of about 285 MW comfortably, according to the same report.

RenewEconomy said the market has posted its highest January-July tally on record for new installations, riding the coat-tails of the federal Cheaper Home Batteries scheme.

Evren, backed by Brookfield, has signed a 750 MW power purchase agreement with NTPC covering a hybrid project that pairs solar, wind and battery energy storage assets in India, according to ESS News.

The contracted capacity sits across two Indian states, Andhra Pradesh and Rajasthan, ESS News reported. The battery component is bundled into the same offtake arrangement as the solar and wind generation rather than contracted separately.

The deal lifts Evren's Indian renewable pipeline to 11 GW, of which more than 3.5 GW is under construction across solar, wind and battery storage projects, per ESS News.

Once operational, the hybrid project is expected to generate 2.5 billion units of clean energy each year and mitigate 1.8 million tonnes of carbon dioxide annually, ESS News reported.

Swapping Australia's metallurgical coal exports for green iron by 2040 would take AUD170 billion of investment every year for the next 14 years, close to the peak of the mining boom, according to IEEFA.

The arithmetic starts with volume. Australia ships roughly 150MTPA of metallurgical coal, which IEEFA equates to about 270MTPA of green iron on the basis that roughly 0.55 tonnes of met coal goes into making one tonne of iron.

Unit costs do the rest of the work. IEEFA puts the capital bill for 1 million tonnes of green iron capacity in Australia at AU$7-10 billion at current prices, covering ironmaking, electrolysers, solar, wind and batteries.

That annual figure sits against a mining capital cycle that has already turned. Australian mining investment peaked at AUD190 billion in real terms in 2012 and now runs at AUD51 billion, IEEFA said.

The power requirement is the binding constraint at the project level. South Australia already generates more than 70% of its electricity from solar and wind. Even so, IEEFA calculates that a single green ironmaking facility at Whyalla would need 2.5 times the utility solar and battery capacity currently installed on the South Australian grid, plus another 1.1 GW of wind, a 40% increase.

For a built comparison, IEEFA points to Stegra's green iron and steelmaking project in northern Sweden. The company raised EUR6.5 billion, split one-third equity and two-thirds debt, then completed a further EUR1.4 billion raising to finish construction. That puts capital intensity at roughly EUR4 billion per million tonnes of capacity.

The Swedish benchmark is the cheaper end of the range. Australian projects would need to clear the AU$7-10 billion per million tonnes band identified by IEEFA while also building the generation and storage that a coal-free reduction route demands on site.

Repeated across 270MTPA of notional output, the electricity build implied by the Whyalla case is what pushes the national number toward the mining-boom peak rather than the current AUD51 billion run rate.

Two offshore construction packages are finished at the 495 MW Fengmiao I offshore wind project off Taiwan, according to Offshore Engineer OEDigital. Jan De Nul completed installation of the project's export cables, while CDWE finished installing the offshore substation and pin piles.

The export cable route runs to Taichung City. Offshore Engineer OEDigital reported the two cables measure approximately 45 km and 44 km, carrying the wind farm's output ashore.

CDWE, a joint venture between CSBC Corp. and DEME Offshore, handled the transportation and installation campaign for the substation and its foundation, and installed all 99 large-diameter pin piles, according to the same report.

The substation was set in place by the Green Jade installation vessel. Offshore Engineer OEDigital put the topside weight at more than 3,000 tonnes, sitting on a jacket foundation of more than 4,000 tonnes.

Generation will come from 33 Vestas V236-15.0 MW turbines. Fengmiao I is one piece of the wider Fengmiao offshore wind development, which Offshore Engineer OEDigital sized at 1.8 GW.

The array sits around 35 km off the coast of Taichung. Copenhagen Offshore Partners is developing the project on behalf of Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, according to Offshore Engineer OEDigital.