The EU’s Sustainable Taxonomy was intended to complement the Green Deal, provide investors with certainty about the sustainability of their investments, and help channel billions into sustainable, low-carbon processes and technologies. Despite input from experts and NGOs, the inclusion of gas and nuclear power just proposed by the Commission suggests that, once again, politics is trumping science.

Brazil’s deployment of distributed generation PV (below 5 MWp) has exploded from a total capacity of 500 MW in 2018 to 7 GW by September of this year. The trigger for this increase, alongside rocketing electricity prices, was the 2019 proposal of law 5829, writes IHS Markit analyst Angel Antonio Cancino. The proposal is expected to pass into law at the end of this year and will gradually introduce grid-access charges for residential and commercial system owners.

Structural imbalances in the supply chain and the energy intensity and consumption controls that China imposed in late September have caused prices for most PV module materials and components to continue to rise. Shipping fees and PV plant construction costs also remain high. PV plants in many regions will therefore be postponed until next year, but it remains unclear when module prices will start to fall. Despite these challenges, the global race to cut carbon emissions continues, and InfoLink’s Corrine Lin forecasts a bright future for PV deployments in 2022.

The EU has been pouring money into European battery manufacturing and recycling projects but has, as yet, been unable to address the critical question of raw materials, according to analyst WoodMac.

As 2021 ends, we enter a period of reflection and preparation. The ongoing pandemic has brought supply chain disruption, while the increasingly severe effects of the climate crisis loom over us. This winter, Europeans are struggling through unprecedented energy costs, driven by extremely high global gas prices. A year of difficulties has shown that Europe, more than ever, must accelerate the deployment of renewables to provide our economy with reliable, low-cost, and clean energy.

The Baltic state has offered energy-intensive, international-facing industries up to an 85% discount on a surcharge levied on electricity consumers since May 2017 and made the scheme wider ranging this year, in a move approved by the European Commission.

Advances in solar power and other clean energy technologies have failed to keep up with demand for electricity as economies rebound from the Covid crisis and China and India’s fossil fuel appetite will ensure the world stays well short of what is needed for a net zero 2050 for at least the next three years.

A news article published on Friday stated 13 cases had been confirmed and a senior physician said the working hypothesis was that at least half of the 120 people who attended the event had been infected. pv magazine has contacted Scatec for an update.

Solar manufacturer Jolywood, which supplied almost 500 MW of its bifacial tunnel oxide passivated contact panels for Oman’s Ibri II facility, has claimed the power plant is the biggest to date to deploy the high-efficiency technology.

The latest edition of a clean power jobs survey produced by IRENA and the International Labour Organization has stressed the important role which will need to be played by the public sector if the energy transition’s employment benefits are to be shared equally.

Through this operation, the French investment firm wants to help Ikaros Solar further develop its 300MW solar project pipeline.

India’s production-linked incentive scheme for advance-chemistry battery cell production has received bids for 2.6 times more than the 50 GWh of manufacturing capacity it plans to allocate.

At Intersolar North America in California, Canada-based Discover Battery has launched the Helios energy storage system, an LFP battery designed to operate in remote conditions.

Toshiba has developed a battery that can be used with PV modules, with a design that charges and discharges at high currents. The new 20Ah-HP SCiB product has a rated capacity of 20Ah, a nominal voltage of 2.3V, and an input power of 1,900W. It measures 116 mm x 22 mm x 106 mm and weighs 545 grams.

The Indian government has ruled that only solar products and companies on the Approved List of Models and Manufacturers will be eligible for open-access and net-metering projects, in addition to government-backed installations. This includes arrays set up to sell electricity to the government under Section 63 of the Electricity Act, 2003. The amendment will apply to projects that request open access or net metering from April 1, 2022.

Danish developer European Energy sold the 103MW facility located in Troia, southern Italy, to Italian holding Iren Spa. The solar park is currently selling power to the spot market.

Neoen has started to develop 1.2GW of wind, 600 MW of solar and 900 MW of battery storage capacity. Upon completion, the installation will likely be Australia’s largest wind, solar and battery storage project.

The British energy giant will support the potential development of multiple gigawatts of wind, solar and green hydrogen projects in the Middle Eastern country by 2030.

The list of the eligible renewable energy producers also includes 36 hydropower facilities totaling 412.8MW, 36 biomass schemes with an aggregate capacity of 264.8MW, seven wind farms with a total power of 409.9MW, and six geothermal power plants totaling 218.5MW.

The procurement exercise’s final prices ranged between €0.0570 and €0.0828 per kWh.

A British-Indian research group has developed an active cooling technique that is claimed to improve a PV system’s yield by around 0.5%. The system could be used in residential solar arrays and the water heated by the PV modules may be fed into a solar water heating system.

The basic version of the “Delta Pro” product has a storage capacity of 3.6kWh. The weight of the battery in the basic version is 45kg and its size is 63.5×28.5×41.6 cm.

The solar cell was built with Al2O3-incorporated CZTSSe absorbers using aqueous spray pyrolysis in ambient air. It achieved an open-circuit voltage of 0.469 V, a short-circuit current of 36.96 mA cm2, and a fill factor of 67.25%.

Australian solar window supplier ClearVue says its products can reduce carbon emissions in buildings by as much as 90%, while California-based BIPV window coating producer Ubiquitous Energy has raised $70 million to scale up its own tech.

The uptake of EVs in the years ahead will add up to staggering battery capacity, mostly sitting idle on driveways. The two-way flow of electricity from EV batteries, known as vehicle to grid, could not only enable power systems to rely on intermittent renewables, but could also be the trump card for network operators to respond to grid disturbances. However, there are still a few catches to be worked out, as Marija Maisch explains.

The device has a 4-in-1 design, which means it can be connected with four solar panels with a power output of up to 625 W each, through four independent connections. The output of each panel is tracked and converted individually. According to the Chinese manufacturer, the micro-inverter can ensure savings of up to 50% due to the lower number of devices and cables needed.

The companies will collaborate on what is believed to be a first-of-its-kind attempt to incorporate QuantumScape’s solid-state lithium-metal battery technology into stationary energy storage products.

Lithuanian scientists built the panel with 23.9% efficient solar cells with operational stability of over 1000 h. The module has an active area of 26 cm2.

The new heterojunction module series is compatible with Panasonic’s Evervolt battery and has a power output ranging from 400 to 410 W. It also features a temperature coefficient of -0.26% per degree Celsius.

Local planning committees have given a go-ahead to a £2.5 billion gigafactory in the English West Midlands. The facility will be powered by 100% onsite solar and storage and equipped to both manufacture new batteries and recycle used ones.

Canada’s First Hydrogen and German consulting firm FEV are developing a hydrogen fueling station for remote locations where there are no electrical power grids available. Furthermore, Japan and Indonesia have started to cooperate on hydrogen and carbon capture technologies and the UK gas grid is set to start blending hydrogen around the country from next year.

The research institute has upgraded its REopt web tool to include ground-source heat pump technologies. US homeowners will now be able to simulate the impact of converting conventional heating and cooling systems to geothermal heat pumps.

A new underwater battery storage technology is coming from Netherlands-based Ocean Grazer to address the issue of offshore long-duration storage. The company’s Ocean Battery is touted as innovative yet simple, based on existing technology, and capable of enhancing marine life along the way.

Current price signals to distributed battery owners “do not align with grid value,” says a study from the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory.

Woodside Energy has submitted a proposal for a 500MW solar facility to the Western Australian Environmental Protection Authority. The company wants to install up to 1 million solar panels to power industrial customers in the state, including its own Pluto LNG export facility.