Friday, 28 August 2026

A worldwide switch to green hydrogen in shipping could avert 129,458 premature deaths each year, according to a Nature Communications study reported by Hydrogen Fuel News.

The same study puts the annual health benefit of that switch at USD 284 billion, derived from lower PM2.5 and ozone emissions from marine fuel combustion.

The peer-reviewed work was led by Professor Steve Hung-Lam Yim of the Asian School of the Environment at Nanyang Technological University and published in Nature Communications, Hydrogen Fuel News reported.

The mortality figure and the monetized benefit both rest on the same mechanism: replacing combustion fuels in marine engines cuts the fine particulate matter and ozone precursors that shipping emits into coastal air. Yim's team framed the result as conditional on a global shift rather than a partial one.

Nextnova Solar, a solar cell manufacturer based in Oklahoma City, has announced a 2 GW solar cell plant in a 42,550 m2 building in nearby Yukon, Oklahoma, according to pv magazine.

Site work is set to begin in November 2026, with mass production starting in March 2027, pv magazine reported.

The plant would enter a domestic cell base that remains far smaller than downstream assembly. According to SEIA figures cited by pv magazine, operational U.S. solar cell capacity stands at around 10.6 GW, with a further 23.1 GW announced or under construction. Module assembly is where the buildout has already landed: operational capacity now tops 74.1 GW, with 26.7 GW planned or under construction, pv magazine reported.

That gap between cell output and module assembly is the commercial case for new cell lines. Under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, imports of solar cells face a price floor and 15% ad valorem tariffs, according to pv magazine.

At 2 GW, the Yukon project would equal roughly a fifth of the operational U.S. cell capacity cited by SEIA, and would sit inside the 23.1 GW pipeline of announced and under-construction cell projects.

Coal has lost its cost advantage in Indonesia's power mix, according to IEEFA, which puts the generation cost of coal-fired plants at IDR930/kWh in 2025, a 46% increase, with an estimated IDR1,060/kWh in 2026.

At the lower end of the respective cost ranges, utility-scale solar is roughly 44% cheaper than coal and onshore wind about 32% cheaper, IEEFA said. Its levelized cost of electricity figures place coal at USD10.0-15.1 cents per kilowatt-hour, against USD5.6-8.4¢/kWh for utility-scale solar photovoltaic and USD6.8-10.3¢/kWh for onshore wind. Gas is the most expensive fossil option in the comparison at USD14.0-21.0¢/kWh.

The coal figure IEEFA cites already reflects price support. Without the Domestic Price Obligation, coal generation would have cost an estimated IDR1,455/kWh in 2025, 56% above the IDR930/kWh level with the policy applied.

The fiscal gap has widened alongside it. Government subsidies and compensation for electricity climbed from IDR65.9 trillion in 2020 to IDR200 trillion in 2025, according to IEEFA.

President Prabowo Subianto officially launched the country's 100GW solar program on 25 August 2026, after the government first announced it in June 2025. IEEFA argues the program is central to a least-cost planning strategy.

The Electricity Supply Business Plan (RUPTL) 2025-2034 targets 69.5 GW of new generation capacity, of which 42.6 GW is renewable energy and 10.3 GW energy storage, IEEFA said.

Solcast data showed Europe running 5% above its 2007-2025 August benchmark for global horizontal irradiance, a third straight month of surplus after June and July, pv magazine reported.

High pressure sat over the continent for much of the month, holding back cloud and storm formation. Close to three quarters of Europe logged irradiance above its seasonal average, according to pv magazine.

Anomalies of more than 20% above average were recorded across much of southern England, before cooler and cloudier air reached parts of western Europe in the second half of the month, pv magazine reported.

The same stretch of dry weather broke a rainfall record: 62 consecutive dry days in southern England through mid-August, against a previous mark of 51 days, per the pv magazine analysis.

River levels told the other half of the story. The European Commission's Joint Research Centre found low water on the Rhine and Danube disrupted hydropower and nuclear output, pushing reliance onto other sources including solar.

The high-pressure system then weakened and tracked east. A cold front moved in off the Atlantic, and parts of western Europe saw temperatures drop by more than 15 C after weeks of heat and dry weather, pv magazine reported.

The irradiance figures come from the Solcast dataset, which pv magazine reports is used by more than 350 companies managing over 350 GW of solar assets globally.

Ontario backed 12 solar projects totalling 915 MW in April through its long-term energy procurement exercise, according to pv magazine. The awarded projects carry 20-year agreements and are expected to begin commercial operation by the start of May 2030.

Provincial rules diverge sharply below that procurement layer. Québec is running a rebate program that pv magazine reports forms part of wider plans to integrate 3 GW of solar in the province by 2035. British Columbia moved the other way, replacing net metering with a fixed export rate of CAN 0.10/kWh, set below retail.

Procurements of the Ontario type are expected to be a large contributor to a forecasted 21 GW of solar in Canada by 2035, according to previous CanREA analysis cited by pv magazine.

Trade policy sits alongside the provincial picture. The US placed 50% tariffs on many billions of dollars worth of Canadian goods entering the country the previous weekend, pv magazine reported.

The contrast between the two distributed-generation regimes is the clearest split in the current framework. A fixed CAN 0.10/kWh export credit below retail changes the payback arithmetic for a British Columbia prosumer relative to a Québec customer drawing on a rebate tied to a 3 GW provincial target. The Ontario route bypasses that question entirely, using 20-year contracted agreements with a 2030 commercial operation deadline to move utility-scale volume.