Distributed Storage

According to Chinese researchers, using abandoned coal mine goaves for pumped hydro facilities in combination with large scale solar and wind is not only technically feasible but can also provide an efficiency of 82.8% in yearly operation cases. They applied the model to wind and solar-rich northwestern and southwestern China.

The battery was fabricated by Chinese scientists with a low-cost electrolyte made of a derivative of TEMPO, which is a well-known electroactive aminoxyl radical used with several applications in chemistry and biochemistry. According to the researchers, the battery shows high redox potential and is crossover-free.

Western Australia leads the world in successfully implementing renewables-based generation for far-flung customers. Boundary Power has been widely recognized for its innovations and is ready to repeat its successes with standalone power systems across Australia and the Asia-Pacific.

Elsewhere, Portugal’s EDP has unveiled plans to deploy 1.5 GW of green hydrogen capacity and, in Spain, several projects have been announced by Fotowatio Renewable Ventures (FRV), Iberdrola, Solaria Energía and Enagás.

Proposed by Turkish scientists, the system design consists of combining rooftop PV with a ground source heat pump in a greenhouse used for tomato, cucumber and lettuce cultivation. The solar array operates under net metering and grid electricity is used when PV generation is unable to cover demand. According to their findings, the system payback time ranges from 2.6 to 7 years.

The Sun Horizon consortium has started to collect performance data on two pilot projects that combine heat pumps with solar systems using hybrid panels on homes in Riga, Latvia. The solution features a heat pump for space heating and domestic hot water and PVT panels to produce power for heating and domestic appliances, with excess power fed to the grid.

A report published by BloombergNEF for the COP26 climate change summit has listed global commitments by cities, states, provinces and nations to end the sale of new fossil-fueled vehicles but, with 2035 estimated as the cut-off date for zero-emission roads by mid century, policymakers need to be more ambitious.

The European Commission has published its second annual assessment of the competitiveness of the EU’s renewable energy technology industries, and it had a warning for policymakers about the trade balance trend being experienced by heat pump makers.

Norwegian researchers have sought to assess the theoretical technical feasibility of a country-level energy system based exclusively on distributed solar, electric vehicles, and vehicle-to-grid technologies. They applied the model to sunny Spain and found that 3.45 billion m² of PV systems would be necessary to build a 100% self-reliant energy system.

A 60% reduction in building energy use will be key to achieving a low-cost, 100% renewable energy grid, according to a new study by the U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory.