Energy Storage

The European Commission has outlined a long-anticipated plan it says could unlock up to €340 billion for new solar and wind projects over the next decade. The 30-year strategy envisages up to €470 billion being spent on electrolyzer capacity.

Plus, there was plenty of hope in predictions made by Norwegian institute DNV GL but U.S. households are facing hefty energy bills just as data from Delhi showed the link between industrial shutdowns and cleaner skies.

Scientists led by MIT have suggested chitin, a carbon and nitrogen-rich material made from waste shrimp shells, could produce sustainable electrodes for vanadium redox flow batteries and other energy storage technologies.

The expected return would leave the nation woefully short of its ambitious 175 GW clean energy target, which was laid down with a 2022 deadline. Chief executives who criticized aggressive clean power auctions said they would like to see more fossil fuel facilities thrown into the mix.

Funded by the bloc’s Emissions Trading System, the warchest will look to spend more than €10 billion on bringing clean energy innovations to market over the next decade. The scheme will work with other green recovery programs to secure jobs and lay a foundation on which to restart the European economy.

The Japanese brand has closed the initial $6.85 billion purchase price for 80% of the Power Grids business that was owned by ABB. The buyer will have the option of purchasing the outstanding shares in 2023.

A study into the clean energy tech innovation rate required to keep global heating under control may suggest concepts such as lithium-air could yet keep us to the mid-century ambition, but it is also starting to contemplate the temperature rise to be expected if we only achieve net-zero by 2070.

Plus, there is hope of a bright new dawn with proposed legislative changes in Europe and the U.S. even as the solar equipment industry hits new lows and cyber attacks reportedly increase in frequency.

The heads of state of the 27 EU member states agreed to resist calls from a reported eight countries to expand the nature of projects eligible for energy transition support beyond renewables.

Corporate power purchase agreements and the combination of PV plants with hydrogen production open up new medium-term financing opportunities for solar projects, as was demonstrated at the fourth session of the pv magazine Roundtable Europe event. The evolution of corporate deals may have been slowed by current price developments but hydrogen may come sooner than many had predicted.