Markets & Policy

The development entity driving the first stage of a planned 60 MW solar plant has announced a doubling in the amount of borrowing secured for a project which was supposed to be operational in 2018.

The new provisions define clearly what hybrid power plants are and what kind of grid tariffs they should pay. The regulation may be particularly favorable for hybrid wind-solar plants, especially in North-Eastern Brazil, where the grid is not strong enough to support further renewable energy development.

Director Deepak Pandey is confident the company’s hybrid devices – which are lead-acid and lithium battery compatibility – will replace the existing market.

The Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy is now reviewing 54,109 renewable energy projects totaling 5.17 GW in the first round of the SDE+ program for 2021. Solar accounts for around 80% of the total submitted capacity.

Mitrex Integrated Solar Technology has developed a new solar panel with 19.5% efficiency that measures 2,036 mm x 1,992 mm x 40 mm and weighs in at 42 kg. It can operate with a system voltage of 1,000 V and has a power temperature coefficient of -0.36% per degree Celsius.

A surge of Italian PV project activity is soon expected if the local authorities get out of the way. With the market, financial and policy settings in place, the market is set to see a return to bustling PV project activity, with regulatory reforms clearing the way forward, reports Sergio Matalucci in Milan.

The solar manufacturer has lowered the prices of its PV wafers by up to 12.5%. In other news, Haiyuan Material (HYM) has begun deploying production lines at its 5 GW heterojunction PV module factory.

With a new system for floating photovoltaic power plants, engineers from Germany want to make the application cheaper, higher-yielding, and safer. The result is somewhat reminiscent of a pufferfish, which also gave the system its name.

As 2021 ends, we enter a period of reflection and preparation. The ongoing pandemic has brought supply chain disruption, while the increasingly severe effects of the climate crisis loom over us. This winter, Europeans are struggling through unprecedented energy costs, driven by extremely high global gas prices. A year of difficulties has shown that Europe, more than ever, must accelerate the deployment of renewables to provide our economy with reliable, low-cost, and clean energy.

Scientists in the United States turned to artificial intelligence to speed up their search for new materials for use in a flow battery. The group developed a machine learning algorithm that could search a dataset of potential materials and identify those with the ideal balance of different characteristics that make it suitable for use in a flow batteries. The group says its algorithm could be applied to other battery technologies, and even in other fields.