As Czechia reaches its solar potential, with impending changes to the country’s legislative landscape ushering in greater utility-scale solar array rollouts, over 5,000 attendees – government ministers, industry experts, and key business stakeholders – descended on Prague this week for the 2023 Smart Energy Forum.

The European Council has agreed to improve regional electricity market legislation. If the European Parliament supports the proposed reforms, it could stabilize energy prices and reduce reliance on fossil fuels, says Teresa Ribera Rodríguez, Spain’s ecological transition minister.

If 157,621 hectares of utilized agricultural area in the European Union incorporated agrivoltaics, it could produce up to 944 GW installed capacity, a new study published by the Joint Research Centre found. Despite the optimism, certain challenges – such as no clear definition and dedicated standards – stand in the way of the technology’s success.

Despite inflationary challenges and elevated interest rates, financing in the solar industry has remained robust with corporate financing sitting at $28.9 billion – a 55% hike from last year’s $18.7 billion, a new report by Mercom Capital Group states.

Tokyo-based PV equipment manufacturing company NPC Incorporated will foster future capacity expansion due to equipment demand from an undisclosed North American solar manufacturer.

Roughly €380 million ($403 million) has been earmarked for spending in Ireland’s residential and community grant upgrade schemes, which includes solar PV installations, according to the Irish government’s 2024 Budget. The head of the local energy association, however, cautions to pv magazine that the new budget may not be ‘quite so generous’ as it first appears.

Morocco-based rock miner OCP secured financing to build two solar PV plants totaling 400 MW from the International Finance Corporation, with the twin facilities located near the mining towns of Benguerir and Khouribga – home of the country’s most phosphate-rich reserves.

Solar panel producer Maxeon Solar Technologies will lay off 750 employees by the end of the year as the company reels from reduced shipments from its largest distributed generation (DG) customer in North America and an ‘industry-wide demand slowdown’ in global DG markets.

By mid-century the levelized cost of energy (LCOE) for solar PV will be $0.021/kWh, a new report by risk management company DNV predicts. The learning rate for solar is predicted to decrease from 26% to 17% by 2050.

The Bulgarian government has opened public discussion for the country’s first renewable energy auction. Through the procurement exercise, it expects to allocate 1,425 MW of renewable energy power generation capacity and 350 MW of storage.