Wednesday, 26 August 2026

The UK Prime Minister cut taxes on electricity bills in July 2026, according to UK DESNZ.

The VAT cut has been funded for the 2026 to 2027 financial year through the cancellation of the digital ID programme, UK DESNZ said. That ties the relief to a single budget year and to a specific offsetting decision rather than to new borrowing.

A second measure runs alongside it. Around 6 million households are eligible for the Warm Home Discount this winter, according to UK DESNZ. The discount provides a further GBP 150 off electricity bills for eligible households.

The two measures work through different channels. The tax reduction applies to bills broadly, while the Warm Home Discount is targeted at the eligible group identified by UK DESNZ.

Japanese chemical producer Tokuyama has inaugurated a polysilicon factory in Vietnam, pv magazine reported.

The plant sits inside the Phu My 3 Special Industrial Park in Ho Chi Minh City, and according to pv magazine it will manufacture and distribute polysilicon for semiconductors.

Capital committed to the project reached VND 580 billion, or USD 22.2 million, per pv magazine.

The company first announced plans for the Vietnamese site in 2024, according to the same report.

Four governments want the shipping emissions package that carried a 63-13 vote at the April 2025 talks put back on the table for adoption: the UK, Australia, Canada and South Africa, Climate Home News reported.

That package, the Net-Zero Framework (NZF), reached provisional agreement in April 2025. It pairs emissions reduction targets for shipowners with payments to those that meet them and fees on those that do not.

Adoption stalled instead. Climate Home News reported that the US, in October 2025, persuaded a majority of voting nations to hold off on adopting the NZF for a year, following an intervention by US President Donald Trump and threats of sanctions and visa restrictions.

The targets behind the framework date to 2023: a 20% cut between 2008 and 2030, 70% by 2040, and net zero by or around 2050. Shipping accounts for 3% of global emissions, according to Climate Home News.

A rival route is on the table. Climate Home News reported that governments favouring a softer system are likely to back a Liberian proposal, which expert analysis suggests would cut emissions by only half at most by 2050, short of the sector's agreed climate goals.

Brazil has aimed at the finances rather than the targets. Its proposal shifts the raising and spending of Net Zero Fund monies back two years, from 2029 to 2031. Delaying the fund defers both sides of the NZF's core mechanism: the fees collected from ships that miss their targets and the rewards paid to those that beat them.

The April 2025 tally is what the four sponsors are asking governments to convert into a formal decision. Sixty-three votes in favour against 13 opposed gave the framework a majority among governments present.

California's state Assembly has passed SB 868, the Plug and Play Solar Act, according to pv magazine. The measure now returns to the Senate for concurrence on the amendments the Assembly attached.

The bill was introduced in January by Senator Scott Wiener, pv magazine reported. Should the governor sign it, the statute would take effect on January 1, 2027.

The Assembly's amendments carry a sunset built into the text. As of January 1, 2030, the interconnection exemption and the right of users to install the devices without utility permission are removed, according to pv magazine. That leaves the permissive regime operating for a defined window rather than indefinitely, with the utility approval requirement returning at the end of it.

Per pv magazine, enactment would make California the eleventh state in the nation to put a plug-in solar law on the books.

Concurrence is the remaining legislative hurdle. Because the Assembly altered the version the Senate originally sent over, the upper chamber must sign off on those changes before the bill can reach the governor.

Consumers in Great Britain can buy and install plug-in solar kits rated up to 800 W from Aug. 27, according to pv magazine. The UK government said the regulation change could save families up to GBP 110 per year.

An 800 W output can cover up to 20% of an average home's electricity use, according to the UK government as cited by pv magazine. That figure sets the practical ceiling on what a single plug-in kit displaces from a household's metered consumption.

The scope of the change is narrower than the headline capacity suggests. Households in Northern Ireland are not covered by the regulation change, pv magazine reported.

Storage sits outside the reform. Plug-in battery storage devices are not covered by the regulatory changes, according to pv magazine. Buyers pairing a kit with a battery therefore fall back on the rules that applied before, and the savings figure quoted by the UK government attaches to the solar kit alone.

The 800 W threshold defines the product class rather than a per-household allowance in the reporting, and the Aug. 27 start date is the point from which purchase and installation are permitted.