Energy Storage

Instead of using its abundant cheap renewable energy potential to generate the gas simply to feed the appetite of industrial consumers in Europe and elsewhere, Africa could attract the heavy manufacturing sectors concerned, such as steelmakers, to its shores, the African Energy Week event heard.

Aukera Energy, launched as a brand today but staffed by clean energy professionals who have worked with backer AtlasInvest for at least a decade, says it already has more than 1 GW of solar and wind capacity under development in Italy, Poland and the U.K. and wants to almost treble the scale of that portfolio within 12 months.

BloombergNEF says falling battery costs and “surging” renewables penetration make energy storage a “compelling flexible resource in many power systems.”

A 245 kWh mobile storage solution from Swedish manufacturer Northvolt was connected to an operational section of a PV plant under construction in Sweden to replace diesel power generators. According to the project developer, around 500 kW of the operational capacity of the solar park will be enough to power the site’s operations through the battery.

The Chinese manufacturer says the battery has a depth of discharge of 95%. It will be available for sale starting from Q1 2022.

Kawasaki Heavy Industries and Yamaha Motor revealed plans to develop hydrogen engines for two-wheeled and other vehicles. Meanwhile, France-based Hyvia has announced two new prototypes of hydrogen-powered light commercial vehicles, Germany’s ThyssenKrupp is considering listing its hydrogen business in an initial public offering (IPO), and Potruguese utility EDP said it wants to invest in 1.5 GW of renewable hydrogen by 2030.

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.

EDF is planning to build a 240 MW floating PV project at Laos’ largest hydropower dam. French engineering company Innosea has joined the ambitious project as a provider of support for wave and anchoring studies.

Australian miner IGO is building upon its renewable energy options at its Nova nickel operation after signing an agreement with Perth-based energy storage company VSUN Energy to test a hybrid standalone power system backed by a vanadium redox flow battery.

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.