Europe

A rooftop PV system will provide hydrogen through an electrolyzer. The green gas can then be mixed with natural gas to fire the factory’s furnaces.

According to the general manager of French PV production equipment provider Apollon Solar, Jed Kraiem, multicrystalline cells are expected to have a share of only 40% in 2019 global demand, with mono PERC cell structures now clearly being in advantage thanks to higher efficiencies and increasingly lowering costs. He claims, however, that technological advances in the solar industry historically are implemented first in the mono segment and then transferred to the multicrystalline business.

Messe Düsseldorf has partnered with pv magazine for a special publication for Energy Storage Europe 2019. As part of the project, we tasked an independent jury of experts to rank a range of Energy Storage Highlights that were exhibited at the event. During the show, our editors caught up with the top five entries to get a bit of an insight.

In the paper “EU support for energy storage”, the audit agency said that measures taken so far for storage and electromobility development across the EU will not be sufficient for the achievement of the Union climate targets. The authors of the report also stressed that EU is far behind its competitors for battery cell manufacturing, and that more innovation is needed. They also claim development of grid energy storage is being slowed down by double grid fees in some EU countries, including Austria, Germany, Netherlands and Finland.

The energy company plans to build the “HySynGas” project in the Brunsbüttel Industrial Park with ARGE Netz and MAN Energy Solutions. The consortium wants to establish a power-to-gas hub for cross-sector decarbonization in northern Germany.

According to Spanish financial newspaper Cinco Días, UAE-based Abdul Latif Jameel Energy is trying to sell Spanish developer Fotowatio Renewable Ventures (FRV), which it acquired just four years ago. Although FRV has decided not to comment on the matter, market sources believe that reports of its impending sale could simply be an attempt to gauge investor appetite.

The company — which owns a 100 MW solar panel factory in Zaanstad, in the Dutch province of North Holland — is seeking to implement a restart under controlled administration. It cited delays in the delivery of production equipment and a working capital deficit as the main reasons for the insolvency proceedings.

Power provider Stadtwerke Waldkirch has built a 264 kW PV system in Germany with Sunman’s glass-free modules, as a titanium rooftop at the project site made it impossible to use conventional modules.

The German PV equipment provider recorded consolidated sales of €180 million and an EBITDA of €6.6 million last year. However, order intake from the PV industry was lower than in the previous year.

Sharp has released three new high-efficiency mono-PERC solar panels. Ranging from 300 W to 370 W, the five-busbar modules are designed for use in a range of applications, from residential PV projects to large commercial installations.