Sweden

The researchers found that printed solar cells achieved a better performance when they used an active polymer material as glue.

Solar rebates were increased, from covering 20% of the cost of buying and installing a rooftop PV system, to 30%, starting from last January. Overall, the Swedish government will grant around US$80 million in incentives this year.

Although there is still confusion between different numbers provided by the Swedish energy agency, Energimyndigheten, new statistics suggest that Sweden was the largest PV market in Scandinavia in 2017.

For a long time, the Swedish power utility has primarily focused on hydro and wind power when it comes to renewables. But in recent months, the number of solar PV and storage projects has significantly increased. This was reason enough for pv magazine to talk with Claus Wattendrup, head of Vattenfall’s Solar and Batteries Business Unit, about the utility’s concrete plans.

The Swedish Energy Agency will initially allocate 200 million SEK (around US$24 million). Two furthers tranches of 200 million SEK and 100 million SEK, respectively, will be assigned in April and in the fall. The funds will be used to finance small rooftop PV projects under the country’s solar rebate scheme.

The Swedish government is proposing to simplify the building system regulatory framework, in order to enable more residential and commercial solar to come online.

The Swedish storage developer will receive the loan funds via the European Commission’s InnovFin fund, which is part of the Energy Demo Projects facility.

The Swedish Energy Agency has granted SEK 146 million to support Northvolt Labs’ large-scale battery manufacturing plant in Västerås, Sweden. Project already secured financial backing from ABB, Vestas and Scania.

The truck maker is to partner with Northvolt on developing and commercializing battery cells for use in heavy commercial vehicles.

A 250 kW PV system will provide around 4% of the bridge’s energy needs. The project may be expanded to 700 kW.