Monday, 24 August 2026

China has cut crude imports by nearly 50% since the start of the US-Iran war, The Wall Street Journal reported. Beijing is one of the largest buyers of Iranian oil.

The reduction comes as the Trump administration warns of an "Economic D-Day" aimed at Iran and the countries that trade with it, China among them. That warning places Chinese refiners and traders directly in the path of measures targeting Iranian barrels.

On the diplomatic track, Beijing announced on Sunday that it had hosted Iran's deputy foreign minister the previous week for talks tied to the US-Iran war, according to Semafor Net Zero. The meeting followed the import reduction described by The Wall Street Journal.

The scale of the pullback reported by The Wall Street Journal, close to half of prior volumes, sits alongside China's position as a major importer of Iranian crude identified by the Trump administration.

The US FCC has widened its foreign inverter ban to cover wired equipment, pulling Ethernet-connected inverters into its national security Covered List rules while opening a compliance route for domestic manufacturing tied to Section 45X, according to pv magazine.

The restriction now reaches any grid-interactive inverter that contains, or is built to accept, remote communication hardware running over Ethernet, Wi-Fi, cellular, or Bluetooth, wireless or wired, pv magazine reported. That formulation captures devices with communication ports designed in but not populated, not only units shipped with active connectivity.

The safe harbor turns on tax eligibility rather than product design. Inverters made by entities eligible for Section 45X advanced manufacturing production credits under the Inflation Reduction Act will not be treated as foreign-made under the ban, according to pv magazine.

That threshold sits apart from the domestic content test used elsewhere in federal procurement. Standard Build America, Buy America Act rules require US component costs to exceed 65% of total equipment cost through 2028, rising to 75% starting in 2029, pv magazine reported. Manufacturers clearing the 45X bar therefore avoid the Covered List without having to meet the BABA cost share.

Two product categories came off the list. Pure AC-to-DC rectifiers and off-grid inverters were removed, according to pv magazine. Both sit outside the grid-interactive perimeter the agency drew around remote-communication capability.

Equipment already installed is not cut off from vendor support. Inverters already fielded or previously authorized remain eligible for routine software and firmware security patches under the guidance, pv magazine reported. That distinction separates new equipment authorization from ongoing maintenance of the installed base, leaving operators of existing fleets able to accept patches without falling foul of the rules.

The wired expansion closes the most obvious workaround to a wireless-only rule: shipping an inverter with the radio stripped out and the site relying on a cable. By writing the test around communication hardware present or accommodated, rather than the transmission medium, the agency applies the same standard to a cellular modem and an Ethernet jack.

Solquartz, the project company owned by Quinbrook, has signed a memorandum of understanding with Townsville City Council to advance what pv magazine describes as Australia's first integrated quartz-to-silicon manufacturing complex, sited at the Lansdown Eco-Industrial Precinct in north Queensland.

The manufacturing facility is planned for the Lansdown industrial hub, roughly 40 km south of Townsville, according to pv magazine.

Costs run to an estimated AUD 8 billion for the full build, with the first stage of the Northern Quartz Campus expected to cost about AUD 4.5 billion, pv magazine reported.

That opening stage bundles industrial production with its own generation. It covers a 50,000 MT metallurgical silicon production facility, a biochar plant and about 550 MW of solar generation, according to pv magazine. Storage sits alongside it: the Supernode North battery energy storage system, a 780 MW installation to be built in stages, forms part of the same stage. On the figures reported by pv magazine, Supernode North is set to deliver 780 MW / 2,200 MWh of capacity, giving the battery close to three hours of duration at full output.

Government backing has come at two levels. The Queensland government declared the Northern Quartz Campus a 'Prescribed Project' in 2024, and the Australian government awarded it Major Project Status in February 2026, pv magazine reported.

Commercial operations are expected to begin by 2030, according to pv magazine.

The Parliament of Moldova has approved legislative changes that shorten the path for households and companies to install solar panels, storage systems and heat pumps, according to pv magazine.

Under the revised rules, energy storage systems sited inside photovoltaic parks, or within other energy infrastructure that is already built or under construction, no longer need an urban planning certificate or a building permit, pv magazine reported.

The permitting relief stops at heritage boundaries. Approvals from the relevant authorities remain mandatory in historical and protected areas, and installing solar panels on individual historical monuments stays prohibited, per pv magazine.

The change follows the strongest year of solar deployment the country has recorded. Moldova added 315 MW of solar in 2025, according to pv magazine. That took cumulative solar capacity to 710 MW.

Across all renewable technologies, Moldova had 980 MW deployed by the end of 2025, pv magazine reported. Solar therefore accounts for the bulk of the installed renewable fleet, with the single-year solar addition equal to roughly a third of the total renewable base.

A coalition of nearly 200 environmental, health, and community organizations has asked the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to withdraw a proposal that would eliminate minimum public participation requirements for air pollution permits, according to CleanTechnica.

The groups filed comments urging the agency to abandon the rulemaking, CleanTechnica reported.

The permits covered by the proposal are often used for data centers, power plant expansions, and other industrial facilities, according to the same report.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent threatened a wider range of secondary sanctions on countries that do business with Iran, according to Semafor, stopping short of imposing them as the Trump administration continues its battle against inflation.

The threat came alongside designations rather than in place of them. Semafor reported that officials moved to sanction nearly 60 entities that help Iran sell oil, described as "a network of brokers, companies, and shadow fleet vessels". The targets span the United Arab Emirates, Hong Kong, Singapore, Switzerland, Europe, and China.

Treasury also suspended general licenses that had authorized activities such as remittance payments to Iran, per the same report. Those carve-outs had kept specific categories of transactions legal despite the broader restrictions.

Bessent held back from applying the secondary measures he described, a distinction Semafor tied to the administration's inflation fight. Secondary sanctions reach third-country buyers and intermediaries rather than the sanctioned state alone, which is what makes them consequential for oil flows and, potentially, for prices.

More is signaled. Bessent later teased "a major announcement of a financial institution being sanctioned by the end of this week," according to Semafor. He did not name the institution.

The list of jurisdictions covered by the near-60 designations tracks the trading, shipping, and financial hubs that intermediate discounted crude cargoes: brokerage and re-invoicing centers, ship management, and the tankers themselves. Hitting vessels and brokers at once is an attempt to raise the cost of each leg of a cargo's journey rather than a single chokepoint.

Bessent's framing leaves the heavier instrument in reserve. The suspended general licenses tighten the legal perimeter immediately, while the promised financial-institution designation would extend enforcement into banking channels.