Strategic Alliances

PlasticBean, a manufacturer of recycled plastic pellets, has agreed to work with EDPR Sunseap to use 100% recycled plastic in floating PV solar projects in Indonesia, Singapore and South Korea.

Japan’s Itochu has announced a new tie-up with France’s Rosi Solar, which develops tech to recover and recycle high-purity silver, copper and silicon from solar modules.

Three import deals signed by the EU at Sharm El Sheikh during this month’s COP27 summit show the European Union is serious about harnessing green hydrogen for its heavy industry, and about distributing the fruits of the energy transition on an equitable basis.

Turkmenistan’s state power corporation Turkmenenergo and United Arab Emirates Masdar and are currently developing a 100 MW solar plant in Turkmenistan. The new project follows the recent launch of a 10 MW hybrid wind-solar project and will help the country achieve the deployment of its first solar projects.

Japan-based Marubeni and Sompo Japan have partnered to provide defect warranties for second-life PV modules. Marubeni will verify the traceability and authenticity of information on the panels using blockchain technology.

Australian independent power producer ReNu Energy has signed a deal with the developers of a proposed 3.5 GW solar-plus-storage facility in Indonesia to explore the potential large-scale production of green hydrogen for supply into Southeast Asia and beyond.

Germany’s BayWa r.e. and Denmark’s Velux have announced the first agrivoltaic corporate power purchase agreement (PPA) in Europe. BayWa will build two solar parks in Spain to power Velux’s operations, with capacities of 60 MWp and 56 MWp. One of them will partly be an agricultural PV project.

Argentina and Chile are reactivating the Andes Interconnection Line to facilitate the bidirectional exchange of energy. During the day, Argentina will receive 80 MW of solar from Chile, but it will export back 200 MW of natural gas at night.

Energy Dome has entered into a partnership with Ørsted to run a feasibility study on the deployment of at least one 20 MW/200 MWh energy storage facility featuring its carbon dioxide (CO2) battery technology. The first facility will have a 10-hour storage capacity and construction could begin in the second half of 2024.

The second day of the Intersolar South America tradeshow happening in Sao Paulo, Brazil, showed companies’ eagerness for a bigger share of this huge solar market. New certifications, growth of the utility-scale business via power purchase agreements (PPAs), and opportunities for storage were recurring topics.