Middle East

Scientists at Saudia Arabia’s King Abdullah University of Science and Technology demonstrated an organic PV cell that can simply be printed onto a piece of paper. The cell set a new efficiency record for a fully inkjet-printed device, and its designers envisage applications in integrated medical sensors.

The State of Qatar is a World Bank high-income economy, backed by the world’s third-largest natural gas and oil reserves. Qatar has the third-highest GDP per capita in the world, with very high human development. Similar to other Gulf Cooperation Council states – the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman, Kuwait and Bahrain – Qatar is wrestling with the fluctuations in global hydrocarbons prices that started in 2014 and are now compounded by the Saudi-led embargo since 2017.

International thinktank IEEFA says there are 50 viable green hydrogen projects under development with an estimated renewable energy capacity of 50 GW and the potential to produce 4 million tonnes of the fuel annually.

A study from the Lappeenranta University of Technology states a deeper complementarity between solar and wind generation may favor renewables deployment reducing the need for stronger developments in storage technology. Combining solar with wind more widely could also reduce the need for ramping and improve the reliability of energy supply, say the researchers.

Plus, some 5 GW of solar could be heading to Botswana and Namibia and news of a new automotive fuel cell building in Ulm, Germany.

The $1.4 billion cost includes a 1 GW solar field 260km away in Konya. The factory was developed solely by Kalyon Solar Technologies after development partner Hanwha Q-Cells walked away from the project.

Grid scale lith-ion batteries may be multiplying Stateside, but an expected recovery in the production line segment will be put on hold until next year because of the pandemic, according to one analyst.

Swedish start-up Azelio says it will have a pilot project up and running in Masdar City by the end of next month. The technology sees electricity used to super heat aluminum with energy released on demand via a heat transfer fluid to drive a Stirling engine.

The 1 MW/4 MWh storage system will be used for a peak shaving application to store power during off peak hours or when the station reaches minimum load and use the stored energy during peak load as well as for improving network voltage

Researchers have announced a new technique that is a modified version of the isotropic diffuse model.