Wednesday, 26 August 2026

Utility regulators in Maine have selected an 800-megawatt wind farm proposal and a 1.2-gigawatt transmission line plan from bids received earlier, according to Canary Media.

The pairing of generation and transmission is the core of the selection. The 800 MW wind project would need the separately chosen 1.2 GW line to move its output, per Canary Media's account of the regulators' choice.

The decision lands after a long stretch of unsuccessful attempts. Maine has tried for nearly two decades to build utility-scale wind in the northern reaches of the state, Canary Media reported. Those northern areas carry the wind resource but sit far from the load centers that would buy the power, which is why the transmission component sits alongside the generation award in the same procurement.

Argentina's installed photovoltaic (PV) capacity is approaching 2.6 GW and demand is growing, according to pv magazine.

Growth is running against two structural limits. pv magazine identifies transmission capacity and access to finance as the constraints holding back the Argentine solar market.

The sector has been operating without its central procurement channel. Argentina's RenovAR renewable energy public procurement program was shuttered in 2025, forcing the domestic solar industry to adapt, pv magazine reported.

RenovAR launched in 2016 and ran four successful tenders before it closed, according to the same report.

Australia's federal Capacity Investment Scheme (CIS) has moved to its eleventh round, targeting roughly 1.8 GW of renewable generation in Western Australia, pv magazine reported. Winning projects should be running by 2030.

Registration has already begun. The bid window opens 27 August, timed with publication of the guidelines that govern the round.

Within the 1.8 GW target sits a 180 MW carve-out labelled the First Nations Equity and Revenue Sharing Set Aside. To compete for it, a developer must offer First Nations equity participation of at least 5%, or an equivalent revenue-sharing structure.

Australian Energy Minister Chris Bowen said this is the first tender requiring bidders to take part in the government's new Developer Rating Scheme (DRS), which rates the record and conduct of renewable developers and transmission companies for landholders and communities.

Western Australia has already run CIS rounds this year. Those awards covered 10 projects, totalling 1.9 GW of renewable generation plus 482 MW of battery storage, according to pv magazine.

On the government's own account, Tender 11 is likely the last CIS round it runs in the Wholesale Electricity Market (WEM), conditional on generation and dispatchable capacity targets being reached.

York Timber Holdings signed a 10-year renewable electricity agreement with electricity trader Discovery Green in June 2026 to supply its Jessievale sawmill, according to Mongabay.

The contract is structured as a wheeling arrangement. Mongabay reported that Discovery Green will coordinate an equivalent amount of power fed into South Africa's national grid by a range of solar and wind producers across the country.

The sawmill already draws on generation of its own. York Timber operates a 700 kW solar farm at the Jessievale mill, Mongabay reported.

South Africa's Carbon Tax on greenhouse gas emissions was introduced in 2019, according to Mongabay.

Plug-in solar panels are coming to market in the United Kingdom, with households able to save up to GBP 110 a year, according to UK DESNZ.

The kits supply up to 20% of average home electricity use, UK DESNZ said. Each unit produces up to 800W of power.

Retailers including Currys, B&Q, Screwfix and Amazon have worked with the government on the rollout and will soon stock the kits in stores and online, according to UK DESNZ.

Energy Secretary Miatta Fahnbulleh described plug-in solar as "a simple, affordable way for households to take control of their energy bills and start saving straight away".

The format is established elsewhere. In Germany, where the technology is already widely used, around half a million new devices were plugged in last year, UK DESNZ said.