Portugal

The renewables unit of Portuguese energy supplier EDP has commissioned Portugal’s second solar-wind hybrid project. It has installed 36 thousand bifacial panels alongside 13 wind turbines to produce 79 GWh of renewable energy per year.

Pixel Voltaic, a spinoff of University of Porto, has launched a laser system to hermetically seal glass-glass and glass-steel perovskite PV modules up to 30 cm x 30 cm. The company’s technology roadmap is to increase capacity to accommodate larger device areas of up to 1 m2, and to modify the process to operate within a roll-to-roll line.

Galp, a Portuguese energy company, has announced plans to build a 5 MW/20 MWh battery storage system in Portugal, in collaboration with Powin. The system at one of Galp’s solar plants will enable it to adjust its PV production profile and meet its energy requirements. This project marks Powin’s first venture in Europe.

A group of researchers from the University of Lisboa and the Military Academy reported on the viability of agrivoltaics in Portugal. It found that spaced rows of PV modules combined with shadow-friendly crops had the most promising return and a payback period of less than five years.

Scientists in Turkey determined the optimal tilt angle for agrivoltaic projects associated with different crops in the central Mediterranean region, and other regions with similar latitude and climatic conditions.

The new algorithm monitors the inverter subsystems and sends alarms when maximum and minimum values are reached. It analyzes data and categorizes variables according to historic values. 

The Portuguese government is seeking proposals for a €45 million ($48.4 million) floating PV project.

The European Commission first set up the rules for energy sharing communities in 2018 and 2019, with Portugal rolling out its own legislation soon after. Despite these efforts, five years on there are only three energy sharing communities legally operating in the Mediterranean country, with hundreds more stuck in a year-long regulatory backlog, one local engineer tells pv magazine.

Portugal’s Prosecutor’s General Office (PGO) reportedly confused the then-Prime Minister’s name, Antonio Costa, with that of the Minister of Economy, António Costa Silva, in a corruption investigation. The transcription incorrectly implicated the Prime Minister’s involvement.

Prime Minister António Costa of Portugal has quit after eight years in office, he announced yesterday. The news came two hours after the public learned the police searched his and other government ministers’ official residences and offices as part of a criminal investigation involving alleged hydrogen and lithium corruption.