Grids & Integration

Plus, details have been revealed of a 2 MW/2.5 MWh grid scale storage demo project in Switzerland and for a peer-to-peer renewable energy certificate marketplace in Southeast Asia.

The Portuguese government has revealed some of the preliminary results of the national solar auction which closed on Tuesday. Antonio Delgado Rigal, chief executive of energy forecasting service Aleasoft, said that the 15-year contracts awarded in the auction were the key to understanding the reason of such a low price. This, combined with the rights for land and grid connection guaranteed by the auction, makes attractive bidding at low prices.

Plus, analyst WoodMac says a fall in the cost of power generation in Japan during the public health crisis will help drive renewables investment and the Indian government has relaxed borrowing rules for its financially crippled electric utilities.

International thinktank IEEFA says there are 50 viable green hydrogen projects under development with an estimated renewable energy capacity of 50 GW and the potential to produce 4 million tonnes of the fuel annually.

A study from the Lappeenranta University of Technology states a deeper complementarity between solar and wind generation may favor renewables deployment reducing the need for stronger developments in storage technology. Combining solar with wind more widely could also reduce the need for ramping and improve the reliability of energy supply, say the researchers.

New research from Cornwall Insight shows that grid-scale solar farms are paying 10% to 20% of the cost of providing frequency ancillary services to Australia’s National Electricity Market, despite currently generating around 3% of energy in the system.

Chile’s National Electric Coordinator has granted approval for a new First Solar PV project to supply auxiliary grid services on a commercial basis. The installation has performed better than gas turbine technologies.

Analyst IHS Markit has predicted storage will rebound this year following its first year-on-year decline in 2019. The technology is being rolled out at pace despite Covid-19 with state-level policies set to keep the US the global capital for the next five years.

Swedish start-up Azelio says it will have a pilot project up and running in Masdar City by the end of next month. The technology sees electricity used to super heat aluminum with energy released on demand via a heat transfer fluid to drive a Stirling engine.

With the government having already introduced measures which will reduce the volume of renewables in the national energy mix, further new provisions will restrict the deployment of energy storage and the ability of solar energy generators to sell excess power to nearby consumers.