Energy Storage

With renewable energy generation said to consume up to 95% less water than fossil-fuel fired power plants, solar could lead the way to a less stressed existence in mid century, according to researchers from Finland’s LUT.

A couple of years ago, the Australian state of Queensland became a beacon to advisory Energy Estate and international renewables developer RES Group. The Moah Creek Renewable Energy Project, the first stage of their gigawatt-scale plan, is now about to be introduced to the community.

The World Bank has agreed to finance part of a project owned by Indonesian state-owned utility, PLN. The facility is planned to enable a larger penetration of renewable energy to provide with power two large demand centers in West Java.

A roadmap to rapid carbon emission reduction has suggested the nation add 2.4 GW of generation capacity next year as part of a 15 GW new-solar target this decade. The claims of solar-plus-storage should be ignored for now, according to a new policy document, because batteries will make PV less competitive with coal.

A Norwegian consortium led by Scatec is planning to build a hybrid hydropower-floating PV plant at an unspecified location in West Africa. Building both facilities simultaneously will help its developers define a series of parameters for proper sizing, optimization and design, and set a benchmark for future projects of this kind.

Enertrage and Sunfire want to build an electrolysis test field in eastern Germany and Hyzon Motors sold 500 hydrogen-powered electric trucks to Shanghai Hydrogen HongYun Automotive. Moreover, several partnership agreements were announced in Malaysia, Japan, the US, Australia and South Korea.

Italy’s richest and most dynamic region continues to support solar+storage installations with rebates.

Brazilian researchers have proposed a new mathematical model to change parameters for wind and solar resources and different levels of energy demand. The model was originally conceived for tropical regions, but it can actually be used in any location. The new methodology models a highly complex system featuring wind turbines and PV modules, as well as solar collectors, fuel lines, gas boilers, engine-generator sets, recovery boilers, absorption and compression chillers, and grid electricity.

Startup H2X is banking on bringing automotive manufacturing back to Australia with hydrogen. After it unveiled its Warrego pickup truck last week, pv magazine Australia caught up with the company’s corporate affairs specialist, Tony Blackie.

Research has uncovered critical security threats associated with a number of common smart electric-vehicle chargers, but it’s not too late or too logistically difficult to remedy the issues.