Finance

A printed circuit board-based hydrogen fuel cell for use in autonomous boats and ships has been engineered by a British consortium, and Italian energy companies Snam and Edison want to set up a 220 MW green hydrogen production plant powered by 380 MW of solar in Apulia.

A report by BloombergNEF and Schneider Electric has pressed the case for governments to unlock the world’s potentially huge rooftop solar potential, and cited California’s solar mandate as a shining example.

Energy access entity EDFI ElectriFi has offered the revolving credit facility to a Californian distributor which supplies affordable, pay-as-you-go-enabled devices.

The ARM-Harith Cities and Climate Transition Fund will feature public and private finance, according to the joint venture behind it.

The latest, seven-year investment attracted offers worth more than €100 billion from investors and means the European Union has already generated €54 billion of the €80 billion of bond proceeds it is aiming for this year, as part of its five-year, €800 billion NextGenerationEU support package.

Solar stocks have underperformed in the broader market in August, writes Jesse Pichel of ROTH Capital Partners. Project delays could be on the horizon as more module imports are held up at customs, and the supply chain will start to see impacts as suppliers look for options to source polysilicon outside of China.

With renewable energy generation said to consume up to 95% less water than fossil-fuel fired power plants, solar could lead the way to a less stressed existence in mid century, according to researchers from Finland’s LUT.

The state-owned electric utility has agreed to sell 49% of its shares in the grid. The sale is expected to boost the country’s transition to a greener and smarter energy system.

A roadmap to rapid carbon emission reduction has suggested the nation add 2.4 GW of generation capacity next year as part of a 15 GW new-solar target this decade. The claims of solar-plus-storage should be ignored for now, according to a new policy document, because batteries will make PV less competitive with coal.

Some time ago, when I lived in the center of Berlin, I was a regular at the farmers’ market to buy fresh fruit and vegetables. One greengrocer advertised his wares with the words “cheap today, expensive tomorrow.” It would almost be desirable if we PV wholesalers could offer our modules with a similar slogan. Unfortunately, no one in the industry can currently claim that solar modules are cheap – quite the opposite. Following a brief respite, prices have climbed again in recent weeks. Since the previous low in September 2020, prices for new, grade-A goods have already risen by an average of 20% to a level not seen since April 2019.