Europe

Dutch researchers have shown that bifacial floating PV arrays do not benefit significantly from sunlight reflected from the water, and claim that the water only reduces panel temperatures by a small amount. Bird droppings may also affect system performance, but floating PV could achieve a lower LCoE than ground-mounted arrays if such issues are addressed, they say.

Each of the nations, like Greece, will have gigawatt-plus solar additions in 2024, according to Solarpower Europe, enough to carve out a 3% slice of an anticipated 35 GW regional market.

Overall, the Polish energy regulator has allocated 1.7 GW of renewable energy capacity in a procurement exercise that was open to projects exceeding 1 MW in size. The auction concluded with a lowest price of $0.051/kWh, slightly up from the auction of the same kind held last year.

Launched in November, the “saving-autonomous” program is currently seeing strong interest from homeowners. The program has an €850 million budget and is intended at enabling around 600,000 homeowners to make their houses more energy-efficient by 2030. It includes the installation of a rooftop PV system in the frame of a renovation project.

The third annual scorecard published by the consultant has tested 22 batteries with different chemistries for cycling stability and temperature-dependent behaviour and identified significant product trends.

The European solar market saw around 11 GW of projects, and pipelines change hands in 2019. The positive trend is expected to last, as investors remain optimistic about the future of the industry. Project acquisition activity is seen as a key indicator of financial health in many sectors, including the PV market. It reflects optimism among investors and points to a particularly high degree of liquidity, writes IHS Markit analyst Martina Assereto.

Dutch startup Solarix has developed a new line of facade solar panels featuring 13.8% efficiency and output ranging from 110 to 180 W, depending on the module size and color. The panels can be bolted or glued onto aluminum mounting systems applied to facades.

Terna’s first auction for reserve storage capacity was largely oversubscribed, with over 1,327 MW of submitted projects. Overall, 23 projects were assigned to 17 operators.

Pioneering solar projects which signed ten-year feed-in tariff agreements will soon need to operate free of subsidy and with local authorities like the City of London starting to embrace direct contracts with renewables generators, the PPA market could be set for another turbo charge.

The solar plant is located in Kaposvàr, southwest Hungary, and will sell power at €0.09/kWh under the country’s feed-in tariff regime.