Germany

A 1 MW electrolyzer in the middle of a residential area in Esslingen, southern Germany, is intended to significantly reduce the carbon footprint of its residents. One of the energy sources used in the project is rooftop PV located in the area.

The cheap loan package agreed at the weekend is part of a wider €340 million development deal and extends Germany’s record of promoting the energy transition of the South Asian nation.

With forecasters predicting the carbon price will top €100 per ton by 2030, the latest edition of a Fraunhofer ISE study into electricity generation costs has painted the renewables-versus-fossil fuels conundrum as something of a no-brainer.

The cell exhibited an open-circuit voltage of 1.1 V and was able to retain around 90% of its initial performance after 215 days of exposure to dim light at room temperature. According to its creators, this performance and the notable stability were ensured by the thermal evaporation technique used for depositing the perovskite layers onto the cell.

Under the new provisions, which will come into force in 2023, a photovoltaic system will have to cover at least 30% of the roof area of a new building.

The Swiss manufacturer has secured €185 million for the expansion of its cell and module production. Meyer Burger no longer wants to sell its solar cells to third parties in the future.

The system is based on a power-to-gas hydrogen technology and is intended to enable one and two-family homes to have an independent power supply throughout the year.

Scientists in Germany fabricated an all-manganese flow battery, which they say serves as a proof of concept for the potential of such devices. Their results working with various battery configurations show that cheap, abundant manganese has plenty of potential for flow battery applications; and is worthy of further investigation in the frame of developing sustainable energy storage technologies.

A €4.8 million EU-funded research project is aiming to develop a process that allows recovering all components of a photovoltaic module.

Energy efficiency, electrification of heating and transport, and the provision of clean cooking facilities are all going in the wrong direction as the Covid crisis deprived millions in sub-Saharan Africa of electricity use, according to a report by the IEA, IRENA, WHO, World Bank and UN Statistics Division.