Europe

Tesla and Harmony Energy have connected a 98 MW/196 MWh storage project to the grid in Hull, England. The Pillswood battery energy storage system (BESS) features Tesla’s Megapack solution.

Enel and Soltec have revealed plans to open a new factory on the grounds of a former thermal power plant owned by Enel’s Endesa unit in Teruel, Spain.

Norway’s annual PV capacity additions could grow from 54.5 MW in 2021 to 150 MW this year, amid rising electricity prices. The large-scale solar market is set to contribute the most at roughly 61 MW, according to EUPD Research.

The Irish government wants to introduce an unspecified renewable energy quota for the heating sector by 2024. The Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI) recently predicted that heat pumps could cover 20% of the country’s heating demand in 2030.

The rising popularity of “baseload” power purchase agreements (PPAs) has posed questions to solar electricity suppliers in the German market. How can projects that do not generate at night, and with wide seasonal output variation, effectively supply constant power to consumers? More importantly, who shoulders the price risk?

GP Joule and Trina Solar have finished building a 170 MW solar project on a former lignite opencast mine in Brandenburg, Germany.

Rolls-Royce has agreed to install a 30 MW/60 MWh storage system based on nickel-manganese-cobalt (NMC) batteries in the Netherlands. It will be the country’s largest energy storage system upon completion in spring 2023. It will provide grid frequency regulation services to the Dutch grid.

The Polish government will raise subsidy levels for rooftop PV and storage systems from December under its Mój Prąd scheme. The rebate for solar will increase from PLN 4,000 ($888) to PLN 6,000 and will more than double from PLN 7,500 to PLN 16,000 for storage.

Scientists in the Netherlands have looked at how TOPCon IBC solar cells could help to reduce the impact of shading on solar modules.

Solar has dominated the 2022 round of the SDE++ program for large-scale renewable energy projects in the Netherlands, accounting for around 90% of all pre-assigned capacity. About 2,269 MW of PV project proposals have been accepted.