Friday, 21 August 2026

The UK opposition Conservatives say scrapping net-zero policies could save over GBP 320 billion, an argument the party bases on a report by the centre-right thinktank Onward. Carbon Brief published a factcheck identifying flaws in the report's modelling.

Iain Staffell, an associate professor of sustainable energy at Imperial College London, told Carbon Brief that the report "tells a good story" but that the modelling underpinning it "has more holes than a Swiss cheese".

The alternative policy pathway set out by Onward would result in an extra 524 megatonnes of carbon dioxide emitted between 2030 and 2050, according to Carbon Brief.

Carbon Brief also flagged the demand assumptions behind the cost figure. Overall electricity consumption is 7% lower under Onward's alternative pathway than under the current pathway.

Bangladesh will make solar charging a registration condition for battery-powered auto-rickshaws, according to pv magazine. Operators must charge their batteries with solar power to obtain registration.

The rule reaches a fleet that pv magazine puts at an estimated 6 million auto-rickshaws currently running across the country.

Those vehicles already draw a measurable share of national supply. Their electricity consumption is equivalent to around 5% of Bangladesh's total power generation, pv magazine reported.

The livelihood exposure is wider than the vehicle count. Local estimates cited by pv magazine put the number of people earning income from the three-wheelers at at least 20 million.

Austria's Ministry of Economy set out a new subsidy focus on storage, redirecting new solar funding toward batteries, according to pv magazine.

Broad funding for small, standard photovoltaic systems will be phased out. The ministry detailed the plans on Thursday.

The first come, first served allocation model is being scrapped. In the last funding round, the budget ran out in 33 seconds and thousands of applications for photovoltaic and battery storage investment grants went unfunded. That round intensified the debate over how the subsidy framework should be designed.

A storage study commissioned by the ministry indicates that up to 8 GW of market-oriented storage capacity by 2030 would be economically beneficial for Austria. The same study says the additional battery storage could cut wholesale power prices by up to EUR 2 per MWh in 2030.

The study describes the 8 GW as market-oriented capacity, meaning units dispatched on price signals rather than sized to a single household's consumption.

Households installing a standard rooftop array alone lose access to the blanket grant they previously qualified for. Applicants pairing panels with a battery are the ones the redirected budget is aimed at.

A queue that clears in 33 seconds rewards application speed. Removing it changes which projects can reach public money. The ministry did not set out the replacement allocation method in Thursday's announcement.

For installers and battery suppliers working in Austria, the change moves grant volume rather than cutting it, with storage taking the share that had gone to standard photovoltaic installations. Both headline figures, the 8 GW capacity level and the EUR 2 per MWh price effect, come from the study the ministry itself commissioned.