Belgium

Belgian research institute imec this week said it has set a performance record of 400 watt-hours per liter – at a charge rate of 0.5 – for a solid state lithium metal battery. The institute says it is working with the University of Hasselt to scale up production of solid state cells on a pilot line in Belgium.

Construction on the Lommel project started in October. The facility, owned by Flemish investment company Limburgse investeringsmaatschappij, will sell power to a zinc manufacturer and is also entitled to a premium of €0.0479 on top of the market power price.

With a capacity of 2,2 MW, the rooftop array is at the industrial plant of Belgian company Ontex, which will buy almost all the electricity generated from project developer Menapy under a 15-year power supply deal.

The electricity produced by the floating array will power the Cable Park aquatic park, with surplus power injected into the grid. The project is part of a series of floating plants the Flemish government has been supporting since October.

The Verbraucherzentrale NRW says advertising for the Solstråle solar system is misleading and has warned the furniture provider and its partner Solarcentury Microgen (Deutschland) GmbH it will begin legal action if the campaign is not changed.

The innovation is said to be able to produce 250 liters of hydrogen per day and can convert sunlight and water vapor from the air directly into hydrogen gas with an efficiency of 15%.

The result was certified by the solar cells laboratory at the calibration and test center of Germany’s Institute for Solar Energy Research. Imec’s measurements showed cell bifaciality surpassed 80%.

In both Belgium and Chile, the planned mandatory installation of smart meters is raising concerns among consumers, residential PV system owners and the solar industry. Although seen as a positive, the early stages of smart meter deployment create issues related to the calculation of net metering tariffs and the management and ownership of consumption data, as well as additional costs for consumers.

The controversial charge for residential PV systems will apply only to installations connected to the grid after July 1, and will come into force from 2020. Wallonia has around 1.1 GW of installed solar capacity, most of it residential PV systems.

Most of the nation’s solar is in Flanders, which at the end of December had more than 3 GW of grid-connected PV. Wallonia and Brussels account for the remaining 1.1 GW and 83 MW, respectively. Although Belgian solar is still dominated by residential PV, a stronger stimulus for the market may come from the large-scale segment in the years ahead.