Technology and R&D

U.S. company Group14 Technologies today announced the launch of a factory capable of producing 120 tons per year of its innovative silicon-carbon-based anode material for lithium-ion batteries. The factory is located at Group14’s headquarters in Woodinville, Washington and is the first of several planned by the company.

Furthermore, Michelin said it wants to become a world leader in hydrogen fuel cell systems and ScottishPower aims to build a green hydrogen plant at a wind power complex. Moreover, a study led by scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory suggested new strategies to design perovskite materials to speed up the oxygen evolution reaction (OER), a process that frees up molecular oxygen from water and is key for hydrogen production.

Axter, a French waterproofing specialist, has revealed a new mounting process for the installation of rigid solar modules on several types of buildings, including concrete, metal, and wood surfaces.

A new study from the Lappeenranta University of Technology predicts solar may even achieve a 69% share for total primary energy supply by the end of the first half of the century. In terms of price, solar PV is expected to achieve a capex of €246/kW-installed for utility scale projects, and of €537/kW for residential arrays by 2050. The levelized cost of energy (LCOE), however, is expected to remain constant over the next three decades, as the energy transition will also be implemented with storage technologies, increased flexibility and the production of synthetic fuels.

Greater dispatchability will be required from solar as it becomes increasingly mainstream worldwide, or investors could experience diminishing returns as a victim of the technology’s success at bearing down on electricity prices.

Scientists in the U.S. claim to have successfully upcycled PET waste bottles into an electrochemical active-carbon material that functions as a double‐layer supercapacitor substance. They said that this achievement may lay the ground for the production of more sustainable batteries. Devices built with the proposed technique would not store as much energy as lithium-ion batteries but they could charge much faster.

The Institute for Solar Energy Research Hamelin (ISFH) is testing if renewables can cover 80% of electricity and heating demand combined in some town districts in southern Germany.

A Chilean startup is using solar energy to produce high-quality drinking water from the humidity in the air. The first plant is located in Chile, but there are plans in the works to expand to Colombia and Peru.

The contest is over. Faster, cheaper, more flexible than gas turbines – battery energy storage must be the future peaking energy service provider of choice, according to a new paper by Australia’s Clean Energy Council.

The result was achieved for a small area device with the size of 0.1 sq cm. The cell was fabricated with a Tin(IV) oxide electron transport layer modified with crystalline polymeric carbon nitrides (cPCN).