Utility Scale PV

The fourth round of the Contracts for Difference (CfD) scheme is expected to allocate 12 GW of renewable energy capacity. Solar and on-shore wind, which the British government considers well-established technologies, are entitled to secure up to 5 GW, but the limited budget these two technologies have been awarded may not be enough to reach this level.

French energy company Compagnie Nationale du Rhône is considering deploying vertical PV installations along 400 km of its dikes. A first 104 kW project was deployed at the Sablons dike, in the Isere department.

The project consists of an 8 M W solar PV plant that is scheduled to be operational in 2022 and a 12 MW wind farm that will be commissioned in 2023. Both facilities will be connected to an 8.25 MW battery and will cover 60% of the annual electricity consumption of the Fort-Dauphin mine, located in the south of the island.

The Japanese authorities have released new guidelines for the development of agrivoltaics projects and have excluded installations that do not host crops or livestock in the planning phase. Analyst Takeshi Magami says that agrivoltaics can be developed under the feed-in tariff scheme, in the free market via PPAs, or through a rebate scheme covering 50% of initial investments.

India recorded 46.2 GW of installed solar capacity at the end of October, led by installations in the states of Rajasthan, Karnataka, and Gujarat.

In 2022, the United States is projected to massively increase its solar and wind generating capacity, extending a nearly two-decade march toward a cleaner grid.

Developed by Chinese specialist Mibet, the floating PV structure can reportedly endure wind and snow loads of up to 42m/s and 1KN/㎡, respectively, in all water environments. It was recently deployed in Poland, at a location where temperatures may reach as low as 40 degrees Celsius.

An Italian company has developed a system that can store energy from wind, solar and grid electricity by compressing and using CO2 without any emissions. The system draws CO2 from an inflatable atmospheric gas holder, stores it, and uses it to produce power again, when demand for stored energy arises.

Photon Energy has deployed its first merchant PV project in Hungary. The company said the €1 million plant may be the first in a series selling power to the spot market. In an interview with pv magazine, Hungarian renewable energy specialist, Ferenc Kis, stated that these projects may become more frequent in the future, due to new coordinated grid connection capacity allocation.

Two different technological developments were announced this week for concentrated solar power technology. In Australia, a consortium led by Vast Solar filed a patent for a new tank design for thermal energy storage systems. And in the United States, Heliogen announced the rollout of robots to install and clean projects.