Strategic Alliances

While Donald Trump grapples with the result of the election, Europe’s highest officials have moved on, and demonstrated new optimism for the four years ahead by setting a preliminary agenda for cooperation aimed at president-elect Joe Biden with key topics including work on renewables, battery storage and carbon pricing.

Big brands will have to put their money where there mouth is on carbon commitments, though, and the EU will have to put its shoulder to the wheel, particularly in respect of the commonly-heard call to dispense with red tape. The prize could be a call for 280 GW more renewables capacity by 2030.

Low-cost batteries and novel perovskite materials are among the topics selected for joint research and development.

The Chinese giant plans to further strengthen the supply chain for solar modules based on 210mm wafers by establishing joint ventures with its rival.

A number of partners are involved in a project which aims to bring down the energy consumption and carbon emissions of a beer company site using smart algorithms.

The electronics brand has announced plans for a virtual power plant aggregator JV with German specialist Next Kraftwerke ahead of the opening up of the control reserve market in Japan in April – and the planned switch from clean energy FITs to feed-in premium, top-up payments a year later.

The nation’s electricity system operator said it wanted more energy storage facilities and to procure new stability products following a big power outage last year. Some 12 months on, the country’s biggest battery storage company has rolled up its sleeves to take on a new role.

The centralized nature of policymaking in Beijing would enable component standardization to ease the transition from EV to stationary energy storage use, according to Greenpeace East Asia.

Industrial and academic partners are developing a battery inverter which can be grid connected under normal operation but can also use nearby renewables generators to form an island grid, for whole-area uninterrupted power supply.

This week will see the official launch of a global taskforce that aims to support worldwide uptake and integration of renewables and achieve at least 50% reduction in emissions over the coming decade.