Utility Scale PV

The Indian renewable energy sector saw investment totaling US$6.6 billion between April and July 2021, beating the total for the previous financial year.

The Uzbek Ministry of Energy plans to hold two more solar tenders for a series of PV plants spread across the Kashkadarya and Fergana, Bukhara, Khorezm, and Namangan regions. It also revealed that there are 1.29 GW worth of projects under construction in the country.

Scientists in Bangladesh have evaluated how a 50 MW floating PV plant could be integrated with the 230 MW Karnafuli Hydroelectric Power Station, located at the Kaptai Dam on the Karnaphuli River. They found that the two energy sources can be perfectly optimized and that PV can compensate for the reservoir’s shortage of water storage during the winter season while hydropower can compensate for the poor yields of the floating array during the monsoon season.

A Norwegian consortium has built an industrial heat pump that can reach a temperature of up to 180 degrees Celsius. The machine can be used with different industrial processes that rely on steam as an energy carrier and can reduce a facility’s energy consumption by between 40% and 70%, as it enables the recovery of low-temperature waste heat.

The furniture giant will sell power from wind and solar facilities to final customers through the Strömma offer.

Emirati utility DEWA has said it expects a further 517 MW of photovoltaic and CSP generation capacity to come online this year at the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum solar field, after the first, 300 MW slice of the fifth phase of the sprawling development was recently inaugurated.

According to UK-based consultant Ember, eight EU countries achieved record solar power production during June and July. Germany and the Netherlands were able to cover around 17% of their electricity demand with PV over the period.

SJVN Limited will sell electricity from a 200 MW solar plant to the Bihar Renewable Energy Development Agency (BREDA) under a 25-year power purchase agreement.

U.K. business and energy secretary Kwasi Kwarteng has unveiled a new hydrogen strategy aiming at developing both the green and blue forms of the fuel. Furthermore, Thierry Breton, the EU commissioner for the internal market, has said Europe needs to increase its commitment to hydrogen and use nuclear to produce a decarbonized form of the gas.

An Indian-Malaysian research group has investigated the effectiveness of several passive cooling techniques for solar panels, including the placement of plants around the modules or coir pith underneath them, both of which, surprisingly, offered good performance in terms of temperature reduction and power yield.