Sustainability

With senators having called for plantation-wide solar powered pumping projects, funded by public money, the country’s National Irrigation Administration has agreed and said it wants to embrace floating solar facilities too.

A consortium of developers led by ACWA Power has secured financing for the Red Sea project, on the west coast of Saudi Arabia, which is set to feature a 320MW solar array and a 1.3GWh off-grid battery.

An initial intent to commission 28 local solar-plus-storage networks has now been stated as comprising “around 20” mini-grids, with delivery expected this year, rather than by the middle of the year.

With the finances of national utility the Bangladesh Power Development Board in disarray thanks to rising capacity payments for often-inactive conventional power plants, renewables offer the hope of fiscal sustainability, according to the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis.

Electric vehicles, both fully electric and plug-in hybrid EVs, look set to become dominant in new car sales within years in many parts of the world, but overall changes to car fleets face significant inertia. What impact will this have on the future grid, and where’s the opportunity for solar? Tristan Rayner gets behind the wheel.

The ILX pension fund investor set up with the backing of German, Dutch and British public money has committed to join the EBRD in providing the finance for climate-related investment across the lender’s sphere of influence.

Canada-based Ly-Cycle has formed a joint venture with Norwegian-headquartered strategic partners Eco Stor and Morrow Batteries to build a new commercial lithium-ion battery recycling facility in southern Norway.

Mercedes-Benz has teamed up with ProLogium to integrate solid-state battery technology into a range of passenger vehicles; Panasonic and Toyota have launched an industrial-academic collaborative research program concerned with battery resources and recycling; and LG Energy Solution plans to spend $2.1 billion with General Motors to build another electric vehicle battery plant in the U.S.

The latest numbers released by EU data body Eurostat indicate renewables, including hydropower, contributed 37% of Europe’s gross electricity consumption in 2020, up from 34% a year earlier.

A preliminary ruling by the European Court of Justice states panel makers should not be responsible for electrical waste management costs in a seven-year period as the rules in place before the EU’s WEEE directive entered force, in 2012, permitted member states to place the obligation on panel users instead. The resulting change in law, in some states, cannot be applied retroactively, under EU legal rules.