Electric aircraft engines could take to the skies over Australia
Zero-emission, low-cost regional flights with just eight other sanitized folk and a disinfected pilot! Yes, Covid-19 is warping our view of the future but the successful electrically-powered maiden flight of a Cessna Caravan last week offers the potential for new modes of transport to support a wider economic recovery in Australia.
Spain and Italy are European renewables investment hot spots, says CEO, and Mexico really should be too
pv magazine spoke to Mark Jones, chief executive of privately-owned clean energy investment company Susgen about where the newly-launched business is looking to spend the cash pile it has allocated for big, early-stage project pipelines.
Software developer claims its platform can unlock a distributed generation world
U.K.-based Power Transition today launched a crowdfunding exercise to raise the £300,000 it says it needs to scale up its blockchain-based, peer-to-peer energy trading platform beyond a 47-home demonstration project.
Used EV batteries for large scale solar energy storage
MIT scientists have suggested used electric vehicle batteries could offer a more viable business case than purpose-built systems for the storage of grid scale solar power in California. Such ‘second life’ EV batteries, may cost only 60% of their original purchase price to deploy and can be effectively aggregated for industrial scale storage even if they have declined to 80% of their original capacity.
Chinese 202 MW/MWh solar-plus-storage project
Inverter maker Sungrow is supplying the inverters and storage system for China’s largest, 202.8 MW/MWh solar-plus-storage facility. The plant will be connected to a new, 800 kV ultra-high voltage power line.
Battery electric vehicle sales in UK were outpacing hybrids – before Covid-19 struck
Pure EVs had begun to claim a rising market share before coronavirus containment measures decimated sales last month. Even in the face of an 88% monthly fall in EV sales from March to April, however, clean energy models fared better than petrol and diesel sales.
The challenges and tricks of tacking on battery storage to solar projects
Specialist Alencon Systems teamed up with U.S. utility Duke Energy to look at some of the challenges faced by energy companies when adding battery storage to operational solar installations. Do you go for DC-coupled or AC-coupled? And with what sort of grounding scheme?
Brazilian buses to help drive down cost of lithium-sulfur batteries
British manufacturer Oxis Energy has announced plans to help Brazil to an all-electric bus fleet by 2045.
Micronesia launches tender for utility scale solar-plus-storage
The government of the Federated States of Micronesia wants to increase power generation capacity on the islands of Yap and Kosrae.
Storing wind and solar with new gravity-based system
Scottish start-up Gravitricity is planning a project to store surplus power from renewables at Port of Leith. A 250 kW, grid-connected prototype facility will have its ability to stabilize the network tested. The system involves a 16m rig over a 150-1500m shaft.
