Saturday, 17 October 2026

Belgium's offshore wind rollout is at least five years behind schedule, according to analysis from the PATHS2050 Coalition led by VITO/EnergyVille.

The shortfall in offshore wind is expected to be covered largely by gas-fired generation, the coalition found. That shift would push power-sector emissions up by about 2 million tonnes of CO2 in 2030, according to the PATHS2050 analysis.

Renewable technologies will overtake thermal generation in South Africa's power capacity mix by 2035 as solar PV and wind replace retiring coal capacity, according to GlobalData.

Installed power capacity in the country is projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 3.5% between 2025 and 2035, GlobalData said. The shift rests on solar PV and wind additions displacing coal plants as they come offline.

The binding limit on that buildout is transmission, not project supply. GlobalData analyst Attaurrahman Ojindaram Saibasan said the grid is increasingly the main constraint on renewable development, with a substantial project pipeline in high-resource provinces but transmission capacity in key wind and solar corridors already heavily allocated.

Grid reliability also frames the investment case. Chris Hattingh said unreliable grid power remains a fundamental issue in South Africa and expects investment in renewables and alternative energy sources to continue and even accelerate.

DEME said its next-generation jack-up transport and installation vessel Norse Energi will carry out the turbine installation work for the first phase of the Zeevonk project, according to DredgeWire.

In a separate decision, East Cambridgeshire District Council opposed two proposed wind farms that could cover more than 8,000 acres of farmland, according to the Ely Standard.

The Australian Renewable Energy Agency said it remains confident Australia can expand onshore solar module manufacturing capacity to meet an aspirational target of 1 GW a year, according to reneweconomy.com.au. The agency is seeking to foster competition for the nation's sole panel maker, Tindo Solar.

ARENA this week launched the third round of its $850 million Solar Sunshot scheme, putting another $250 million up for grabs through production subsidies and grants, according to reneweconomy.com.au.

Separately, Munich-based Helios Solar AG announced a memorandum of understanding with Keong Hong Holdings to develop renewable energy, solar, battery storage and data center infrastructure across Asia and Europe, according to finanzwire.com. The collaboration targets markets including Malaysia, Cambodia and Kazakhstan.

Qcells plans to launch new versions of its residential solar panels with U.S.-made aluminum frames by the end of 2026, according to pv magazine. The updated Q.Tron AC and Q.Peak Duo AC lines will use aluminum frames made at Aluko Group's facility in Halls, Tennessee.

The frames at the Tennessee plant will be extruded, anodized, and fabricated on site, pv magazine reported. Once operational, the plant has a planned annual capacity to manufacture enough frames to support 4 GW of solar modules, according to pv magazine.

The initiative is aimed at helping residential installers and third-party ownership providers qualify for the U.S. Investment Tax Credit domestic content bonus, pv magazine reported.

A 12 MW grid-connected solar plant in Sidi Bel-Abbes, western Algeria, saw its performance drop in 2020 after maintenance was scaled back under COVID-19 restrictions, according to pv magazine. Researchers at Djillali Liabes University of Sidi Bel-Abbes tracked the plant over six years, from 2018 to 2023.

The decline in 2020 was primarily attributed to reduced maintenance activities during the pandemic, according to pv magazine.

The plant's performance ratio fell to 78.74% in 2020 from 85.37% in 2019, before recovering to 84.83% in 2023, according to pv magazine.

The researchers said regular maintenance and improved cleaning systems are important for sustaining electricity production.

State authorities in Victoria, Australia approved the Warracknabeal Energy Park, clearing the renewable project to advance to federal review, according to rocketnews.com.

The project involves 219 wind turbines and two battery storage systems, each with 300 MW of capacity, rocketnews.com reported.

Once operational, the wind farm is projected to generate 1.5 GW of renewable electricity, enough to power approximately 1.2 million homes, according to rocketnews.com.

If completed, the Warracknabeal Energy Park would be the largest wind farm in Australia and the Southern Hemisphere, oilprice.com reported, overtaking the Golden Plains Wind Farm west of Geelong, Victoria, which has 215 turbines and a 1.33 GW capacity.

A team led by Wen Ma at Inner Mongolia University of Technology reported the first synthesis of hollow nanostructured high-entropy carbides using direct electroreduction in molten salts at 800 degrees Celsius, according to scienmag.

The researchers produced the carbides in molten calcium chloride-sodium chloride, with compositions including (HfNbTaTiZr)C and rare-earth variants using gadolinium, cerium, or yttrium. The method avoids templates: the team found the microstructure could be shifted from solid to hollow particles by selecting a different carbon source, according to scienmag.

The best-performing catalyst, (HfNbTaTiZrCeY)C, reached an overpotential of 167 millivolts at 10 milliamperes per square centimeter, scienmag reported. It recorded a Tafel slope of 58.8 millivolts per decade and a charge-transfer resistance of 2.7 ohms.