Finland

Norwegian researchers say blue and green hydrogen could complement each other in the future, but early adoption of green hydrogen could result in increased hydrogen production and emissions.

With the rapid growth in electric vehicle (EV) demand bringing fears of a mountain of EV battery waste piling up further down the line, the EU-Swiss government-funded Recirculate program is planning how to keep batteries in use for much longer before they head to recyclers.

A Finnish-Swedish consortium has designed a hybrid system that uses photovoltaics and solar thermal energy separately to provide steam to industrial facilities. The PV unit is coupled to a sand-based thermal storage system and reportedly contributes to lower the levelized cost of energy of the entire system.

A research group in Finland has created a new workflow to prevent voltage rises in bifacial vertical PV systems located at high latitudes. According to their findings, vertical bifacial PV may have a 46% higher power yield compared to monofacial conventional counterparts in the Nordics, while also having an improved temporal match between PV generation and consumption.

Finnish scientists have tested a new eddy current-based soldering method for ribbon tabbing in solar cells and have found it considerably reduces the number of cracks and damages caused by thermal-mechanical stress in the process. They claim the new technique may already compete with conventional soldering methods in commercial production.

Finnish researchers have said in a new report that northern European countries could produce cheap hydrogen domestically, while TotalEnergies, Schneider Electric and other companies signed new hydrogen project deals.

Vaisala, a Finnish environmental measurement specialist, has developed a solar-powered weather station to optimize the performance of solar plants. It provides ongoing measurements of solar irradiation and various weather parameters, such as wind speeds.

Plug Power has revealed plans to develop three green hydrogen production plants in Finland, while Statkraft is set to increase its investments in the German hydrogen market.

Finnish researchers have studied different scenarios to convert a Nordic oil-heated townhouse into a carbon-neutral building. They dimensioned an off-grid PV-powered heat pump system using waste heat recovery from a hydrogen storage system and calculated its life-cycle cost. They concluded that the solution is less profitable than grid-connected systems.

Lhyfe has revealed plans to jointly develop offshore renewable green hydrogen with Centrica in the United Kingdom. Separately, the Paris-listed hydrogen producer said it has also acquired a stake in Finland’s Flexens.