New York

The Monroe County Water Authority recently flipped the switch on a 5 MW ground-mounted solar array in Penfield, New York.

A 100kW/1.5MWh zinc-air battery will be installed in Queens, New York, in combination with a combined heat and power system and a PV array. The pilot project is intended to demonstrate the long-duration energy storage capability of the zinc-air battery.

With Scottish company Smarter Grid Solutions having already seen its software deployed in the U.K., a pilot project in New York State has been a resounding success for a grid solution the NREL has predicted could unlock swathes of network capacity without the need for new power lines.

Plus there is news this week of a green hydrogen tie-up in India, plans for another German production facility, and of new hydrogen transport networks for Switzerland and the U.S.

Made up of distributed residential energy storage, these “plants” stabilize the grid and often end the need for new fossil generation. Tesla customers in California are the latest to join the movement.

Italian energy company Eni is partnering with local companies in Algeria and Egypt to explore the possibility of producing green and blue hydrogen in the North African countries. The United Arab Emirates is also collaborating with Japanese partners to develop the country’s hydrogen sector, while in New York, hydrogen has arrived in Long Island.

A Rochester-based firm aims to print perovskite and other PV layers on a flexible glass substrate using a roll-to-roll machine Kodak has used to produce photographic film.

With electric vehicles starting to gain traction, the International Energy Agency’s updated, ten-year e-mobility forecast has suggested geopolitical and economic concerns will trump environmental niceties when it comes to encouraging recycling. But what price ever-cheaper batteries?

Analysts appear divided on the effects the public health crisis will have on the EV market even as sales of petrol-engined SUVs soar in China. And Portugal is plowing on with its Covid-delayed national solar tender, an exercise which may help establish whether clean energy thinktank Ieefa is right to predict PV prices will continue to fall.

Tesla’s Nevada operation is still open for business, though. The EV and battery maker has assured the market its cash position is strong enough to weather an “extended period of uncertainty”.