Eastern Europe

Researchers in Hungary have found that a high tilt angle may increase power forecast errors in a PV installation by up to 49%. They also ascertained that
undersizing the inverters by a sizing factor of 1.5 may reduce forecast errors by up to 25%.

Estonian startup Solarstone has developed two solar tiles with an efficiency of up to 19.5% and an operating temperature coefficient of -0.41% per C. It recently secured €10 million in funds to expand sales across Europe.

The authorities in Slovakia are offering rebates to cover up to 50% of the cost of buying and installing solar water heaters, PV systems with generation capacities of up to 10 kW, heat pumps, biomass systems, and solar-thermal collectors.

Bosnian utility EBiH plans to deploy solar plants across its coal waste sites. The first two projects will be built on a coal dump in the municipality of Gračanica.

The plan envisages opening the Slovenian energy market to large-scale solar plants and is intended to reduce the country’s dependence on fossil fuels.

Scientists in Poland have developed a compressed air energy storage technology using a thermal energy storage (TES) system built into a disused mine shaft. The system works without external heat sources, and utilizes an air compressor, a compressed air reservoir with a built-in thermal energy storage system, and an air expander.

The Germany-based heating specialist wants to invest more than €200 million (US$200.5 million) in the new heat pump facility.

Developers are making hay as far as PPA prices are concerned thanks to eye-watering wholesale electricity prices which mean they can just sell their solar and wind power on the open market.

The average global price of solar kilowatt-hours fell 13% on 2020’s prices, as around two-thirds of the renewables capacity installed last year was cheaper than the lowest-cost fossil fuel alternative.

Uzbekistan launched its latest procurement exercise in September 2021. The country aims to build three solar parks in the Namangan, Bukhara and Khorezm regions.