Highlights

State Power Investment Corp. (SPIC) has started operating the world’s first offshore floating solar plant integrated with an offshore wind turbine, at a pilot site off the coast of China’s Shandong province. It features floating PV tech from Norway’s Ocean Sun.

An Israeli scientist has proposed a way to achieve uninterrupted PV power on the moon without using energy storage. The proposal involves the installation of PV panels around a 360-degree latitudinal ring close to one of the moon’s poles. There would be no inter-array shading, and static vertical PV arrays and arrays mounted on single-axis vertical trackers could be viable mounting structures.

US researchers have facilitated the decoupling of power from energy design by incorporating a conducting carbon slurry in the negative electrolyte of an all-iron flow battery. In a new study, they describe the design considerations for slurry iron redox flow battery scalability.

Norwegian consulting firm Rystad Energy has described the Iberian Peninsula as “a new European energy powerhouse.” It expects Spain and Portugal to reach 79% renewables in their combined electricity mix by 2030.

Germany’s Federal Network Agency (Bundesnetzagentur) says that 691 MW of new PV systems were subsidized under the country’s EEG renewables incentive program in September.

In an unexpected move, the government of Thailand has introduced a feed-in-tariff (FIT) of THB 2,1679 ($0.057)/kWh over 25 years for solar and a 25-year FIT of THB 2,8331/kWh for solar plus storage.

The US National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) says in a new report that PV module lifetime extensions should be prioritized over closed-loop recycling to reduce demand for new materials.

While near neighbors, the electricity generation of the countries of Southeast Asia couldn’t be further apart. Indonesia burns locally mined coal; Malaysia has reserves of oil and gas; and populous Singapore, Vietnam, and the Philippines depend on fossil fuel imports. They could all benefit from increased solar electricity but higher grid capacities and interconnection are key for an opportunity to unlock the power of the sun.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) has published its “World Energy Outlook 2022” report. It expects the energy crisis triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to accelerate the global energy transition.

US-based Mango Power has developed a 3.5 kWh battery system that can be expanded up to 14 kWh. The product features LFP battery cells from CATL and can be charged through AC wall outlets, with solar panels, or via electric-vehicle chargers.