Europe

The virtual battery records the surplus solar power injected into the grid on sunny days and returns it at night or in winter. If the production of the PV plant is not sufficient to cover all the electricity needs, MyLight Systems provides the household with green energy supplied by Swiss energy company Axpo.

Vanessa Nakate shocked organisers of the Berlin Energy Transition Dialogue by delivering a speech highlighting how she and a fellow youth activist had to submit their presentations for approval in advance of the event and were banned from criticising any of the politicians involved.

Poland’s second-largest coal power producer, ZE PAK, will sell solar power to Polish telecommunication group Polsat. The $45.5 million project is being financed by a group of Polish banks.

When looking at European Union renewable energy statistics, the Netherlands was, and still is in many ways, the laughingstock of Europe. But in recent years the country has come to rank near the top in solar deployments. In 2021 this small nation may even surpass neighboring Germany with new installed capacity. Rolf Heynen, the CEO of Dutch New Energy Research, takes a look at what is going on.

We’ll be hanging virtually with German political heavyweights such as foreign minister Heiko Maas and energy peer Peter Altmaier at this year’s Berlin Energy Transition Dialogue 2021 to hear what contribution solar and storage can make to combating climate change.

The Landshut University of Applied Sciences and German start-up Voltstorage will initially develop a residential battery with a capacity of 8 kWh. At a later stage, they want to fabricate a 50 kWh device for applications in the commercial segment.

The Solcan scheme had a budget of €20 million. Most of the assigned PV capacity will be located in the islands of Gran Canaria and Fuerteventura.

Recoy, an Amsterdam-based startup, will help Dutch utility Liander to manage peak PV generation by diverting electricity to grid-connected electric boilers. The energy will be used for the heating needs of big power consumers.

The three Mediterranean countries of Greece, Cyprus and Israel signed this week an agreement to develop a subsea cable that links their electricity grids. Upon completion, the so-called EuroAsia Interconnector will be the world’s longest subsea power cable and could boost solar PV development in all three countries substantially.

German manufacturer Autarq is selling its solar tiles at a price ranging from €25 to €30 per piece. It claims a PV system built with these products can cover around 70% of household needs.