Tuesday, 18 August 2026

Ninety-five foundations have been installed at the East Anglia THREE offshore windfarm off the coast of Suffolk, according to CleanTechnica.

The windfarm is a joint venture between ScottishPower and Masdar valued at GBP 4 billion, CleanTechnica reported.

Once operating, the project will generate 1.4 GW of clean power, according to the same report.

Soil beneath an agrivoltaic array measured more than 20 C cooler than adjacent ground in full sunlight, according to pv magazine, which reported the reading was taken at around 11 a.m.

The outlet noted the measurement came during a period of particularly high temperatures and does not represent an average reduction.

The readings come from field work led by Giuseppe Ferrara, whose team is taking measurements at two pilot sites, pv magazine reported. The sites were developed through a collaboration involving the University of Bari, Italy's ENEA research agency, the startup Agridatalog and other partner companies.

One site is the Vigna Agrivoltaica di Comunità in Laterza, in Puglia, where the researchers are examining fig and olive crops grown under the panels, according to pv magazine.

The second is an installation run by the Le Greenhouse consortium in Scalea, Calabria, where the work centres on lemon and lavender, the outlet reported.

New Zealand's government has set aside NZ$30 million for hydrogen inside its NZ$1.2 billion Regional Infrastructure Fund, with the money directed at green hydrogen production, co-production facilities and related infrastructure, according to Hydrogen Fuel News.

The package was unveiled by Hon Shane Jones at a hydrogen sector hui in Christchurch, Hydrogen Fuel News reported.

Support covers production plants as well as the surrounding infrastructure needed to move and use the fuel, rather than production alone. The allocation sits within the wider Regional Infrastructure Fund, tying hydrogen spending to the same envelope the government uses for regional projects.

Hydrogen Fuel News described the decision as a shift away from small pilot grants toward planned investment in hydrogen infrastructure. The stated aim is to start regional green hydrogen projects.

The hydrogen allocation represents a fraction of the fund it comes from, at NZ$30 million against NZ$1.2 billion.

Primary Hydrogen Corp. has taken two exploration licences covering 1,166 hectares in the Cumberland Basin of Nova Scotia to search for natural hydrogen, according to Hydrogen Fuel News.

The company said it acquired the Northumberland Natural Hydrogen Project in Cumberland County, Nova Scotia.

Hydrogen Fuel News reported that licences 58173 and 58174 cover about 72 claims across roughly 1,166 hectares, positioned along the northern edge of the Cumberland Basin.

The basin holds more than seven kilometers of Late Carboniferous sedimentary layers, among them the Cumberland, Windsor, and Mabou groups, according to the same report.

Rooftops across Bangladesh's garment and textile factories have room for as much as 2,800 MWp of solar, a build-out priced at roughly 126.7 billion Bangladeshi Taka, or USD 1.03 billion, according to a study reported by Mongabay.

Researchers reached that figure after surveying 661 factories in the Bangladeshi cities of Gazipur and Savar. The fieldwork closed in October 2025 and was run by Atonu Rabbani of Dhaka University with a research team from BRAC University, Mongabay reported.

Price tags explain most of the inaction. Of the factories with no solar installed, 65% named high installation costs, while 43% pointed to a broader shortage of resources.

Grid dependence is heaviest at the bottom of the supply chain. The survey put grid reliance at nearly 87% of power demand for small and medium enterprises and above 93% for micro-factories.

Paperwork has also killed projects that had financing lined up. Denim Expert Limited abandoned a planned 1-megawatt rooftop system backed by IDCOL, additional managing director Mohiuddin Rubel told Mongabay, saying the company "could not secure the funding because of lengthy bureaucratic procedures".

The Sustainable and Renewable Energy Development Authority puts renewables in Bangladesh at 1,822.22 MWp, equal to 5.61% of total power generation capacity. The study's 2,800 MWp estimate for garment and textile rooftops is larger than that installed figure.

Qcells has started pulling the full solar manufacturing chain into its plant in Cartersville, Georgia, moving beyond the assembly of major panel components, Grist reported. The expansion began in June at the site, which sits about an hour northwest of Atlanta.

The facility carries a USD 2.5 billion investment and runs on 90 MW of power, according to Grist, which also reported 3.5 million gallons of water and 60 tons of chemicals on site.

Qcells, a South Korean firm, has said Inflation Reduction Act incentives were a major reason it built the Cartersville plant, per Grist.

The policy footing is shifting. Grist reported that the Trump administration plans to levy new tariffs and impose minimum import prices on polysilicon, the key ingredient for solar cells, with the measures taking effect in December.

The manufacturing squeeze arrives against uneven investment flows. Clean energy advocacy group E2 tracked nearly USD 13 billion in abandoned solar, wind, and battery investments in the first quarter, according to Grist, while roughly USD 18 billion in new projects were announced as companies scrambled to meet the deadline of the expiring tax credits.

Demand for the output is not the constraint. Solar and storage accounted for 90% of new power added to the U.S. grid in the first quarter, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association.

Malta's Regulator for Energy and Water Services (REWS) is preparing a second competitive bidding round for renewable energy this year, open to installations sized from 40 kW to 10 MW, according to pv magazine.

The invitation to bid document will be published on August 24, with the bidding window running from October 5 to October 12, pv magazine reported, citing REWS.

Across both invitation to bid (ITB) calls this year, Malta could allocate a combined 15 MW, with bids capped at EUR 0.14/kWh, according to pv magazine.

Winning bidders receive 20-year contracts for difference under the scheme, with developers naming the price at which they will supply electricity.

The first round drew a thin field. Three bids came in, and two projects, of 90 kW and 118 kW, were recommended for award at EUR 0.136/kWh each, pv magazine reported, citing REWS data. Both cleared just under the cap that applies to the two calls.

The capacity on offer is large relative to the country's recent build rate. Malta's cumulative solar capacity reached 250 MW by the end of last year, an increase of 12 MW on the year prior, according to figures from the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) cited by pv magazine. The two recommended projects from the first round together account for a fraction of that annual addition.

The wider size band in the coming round reaches well beyond the scale of the awards made in the first call, where the largest recommended project was 118 kW against an upper limit of 10 MW in the new tender.