TransCanada Corporation has entered into an agreement to sell its Ontario solar portfolio comprised of eight facilities with a total generating capacity of 76 megawatts to Axium Infinity Solar LP, a subsidiary of Axium Infrastructure Canada II Limited Partnership, for approximately $540 million.

A group of private-equity investors led by New York-based Global Infrastructure Partners and China’s sovereign wealth fund will acquire a portfolio of Asian wind and solar energy projects from Singapore-based Equis Pte Ltd for $3.7bn.

China installed 38.28 gigawatts of solar power from January to August, up 49.5 percent from the end of last year, according to the China Electricity Council.

"Brazil is a core area for Statoil where our ambition is to deliver safe and sustainable growth in a significant energy market. Entering into solar in Brazil adds to the positions we have already in the producing Peregrino oil field and in the offshore licenses BM-S-8 and BM-C-33 which include the yet to be developed discoveries Carcará and Pão de Açúcar respectively. We are excited to have entered our first solar project with an experienced partner like Scatec Solar," says Irene Rummelhoff, Executive Vice President of New Energy Solutions in Statoil.

“The point that you can be too early was proved by us,” he says. “We were among the first of the big international oil companies to get into solar and we found out we could not make any money out of it.”

China accounts for the lion’s share of the upsurge. But Middle East and north African countries are scheduled to have installed 14GW in solar plants by the end of 2018 — a seven-fold increase from 2015. Central and South America are also expected to reach 14GW, nearly five times more than in 2015, while India is set to hit 28GW, a jump of nearly six times.

The falling cost of renewable energy will increasingly allow wind and solar projects to make money without subsidies, say the top executives in Europe’s power industry.

Total has picked up a 23 per cent stake in renewable energy company Eren for €237.5m as the the French oil group looks to expand its capacity in the sector.

A transition from fossil fuels to mitigate the impacts of climate change will require large amounts of metals and rare earth elements that could create environmental challenges, the World Bank has warned.

Germany raised the proportion of its power produced by renewable energy to 35 percent in the first half of 2017 from 33 percent the previous year, according to the BEE renewable energy association.