Utility Scale Storage

The country’s cumulative PV capacity reached 22.56GW at the end of December.

With fears over Europe’s gas supply tightening, the Australian government is forging ahead in the green hydrogen sector by launching tech incubator HyGate and awarding Volt Advisory Group cash to develop a renewable energy microgrid. Australian business Fortescue Future Industries and Europe’s Airbus will work on hydrogen-powered aircraft and Kawasaki Heavy Industries is making strides in transporting hydrogen from the state of Victoria.

Ratings agency ICRA has estimated Indian green hydrogen will cost that much if produced at sites featuring clean energy generation capacity and electrolyzers. That is between 50 US cents and a dollar per kilogram cheaper than in locations where the two systems are not co-located, with the saving possible due to a reduction in open-access, intra-state grid charges.

German and Swiss researchers have published a new study that questions the idea of a continual decrease in renewable energy costs, given the reality of rising interest rates and higher carbon prices. They outlined a scenario in which interest rates could rise by up to 5% and public incentives for renewables would be gradually phased out. This could result in a loss of 535GW of new renewables capacity, compared to a scenario in which interest rates remain at current levels.

The US Energy Information Administration says that over the next two years, 60% of new capacity additions in the United States will be solar or battery energy storage.

The London-based analyst has published a series of clean tech predictions for the year which also highlighted the rising proportion of sub-5MW solar projects in the global market, and cheaper clean energy financing costs even as panel prices continue to rise.

A previous announcement by Acme indicated the port site would be able to produce around 876,000 tons of the green fuel per year but the Indian developer today said that figure would be 1.2 million tons. The 100,000-ton-per-year first phase of the facility may be operational this year.

A Spanish consortium is equipping one of Madrid’s largest metro and bus stations with a hybrid system that combines PV, geothermal pumps, and vanadium redox flow batteries to provide cooling and heating.

Researchers from Australia’s Monash University have created a new generation of lithium-sulfur batteries to provide a cheaper, cleaner and faster-charging energy storage solution that outlasts lithium-ion alternatives and is rechargeable hundreds of times without failing.

In other news, Belgian company Tree Energy Solutions (TES) is accelerating plans to develop the German port of Wilhelmshaven into a “world-scale” hub for importing green gas, and German engineering company MAN Energy Solutions will invest up to €500 million in its hydrogen-focused subsidiary H-TEC Systems.