Distributed Storage

Although the energy price recovered this week, ultra low levels driven by bumper solar power generation on a sunny weekend in Germany reportedly put further pressure on the business case for conventional energy.

French start-up Solaire Box has raised €1.5 million to back its business supplying wooden houses complete with PV rooftops. The buildings cost €1,700-2,000/m² and feature PV modules made by French firm Systovi. The company plans add to add features such as energy storage systems and carbon-free heating.

Australia’s previously booming rooftop PV market is likely to see a steep decline in the face of Covid-19-related shutdowns and uncertainty. An industry survey by pv magazine and Green Energy Markets prompted around half the respondents to report declines of 25-50% in customer enquiries, with a further 20% reporting new leads have dried up.

With its sonnenVPP, German battery company Sonnen wants to improve the efficiency of virtual power plants which it says can offer primary balancing energy from houses with solar and storage and can operate up to 90% more cost-effectively.

French solar thin-film specialist Armor has designed a retractable automotive solar cover. It has deployed an initial prototype on a Gazelle electric car, but it said that the cover can be used on any kind of electric vehicle.

A French-Turkish research team has created an economic model to optimize scheduling for solar-powered EV charging units. The proposed model suggests that such projects might be more profitable today than at the end of the decade, depending on a wide range of variables.

National utility Transpower said that solar could take a 9.3% share of the country’s generation mix by the middle of the century. However, real growth is only forecast to occur from 2035, with distributed generation expected to account for more than 80% of total installed PV.

Is there any good reason for putting solar on a Tesla Cybertruck? Or is it just virtue signaling? On the other hand, how far are you driving tomorrow? Do you have range anxiety or just general anxiety?

The German manufacturer has started to produce its first commercial storage systems at its new plant under strict safety precautions due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. The facility’s current annual capacity is set at 255 MWh, but the company aims to eventually expand that to 1 GWh.

The Swiss equipment supplier already needed to shore up its bottom line and is now taking measures to help combat the spread of an epidemic which has also claimed November’s planned climate summit in Glasgow and an estimated 19% of this year’s demand for energy storage.