Sweden

German investors have agreed to back a hydrogen project in Namibia, while Plug Power and Thyssenkrupp Nucera have announced separate hydrogen-related deals in Sweden.

NEOM Green Hydrogen Company has secured an exclusive 30-year off-take agreement with Air Products for what they claim will be the world’s largest green hydrogen plant, while Germany’s EEX has launched the world’s first market-based hydrogen index.

Swedish scientists have created a contract to help renewable energy producers and retailers to pay high imbalance costs. The new framework could boost clean energy profits by up to 4.8% and retail profits by more than 7%, claim the researchers.

Dutch and Brazilian ports have signed a cooperation deal involving port development and green hydrogen production, while Thyssenkrupp Nucera has released a new alkaline water electrolysis (AWE) module.

First Solar has agreed to pay $38 million to buy Swedish manufacturing startup Evolar AB, as it seeks to expand development of high-efficiency tandem PV tech.

The Australian government has presented its 2023-2024 budget, with AUD 2 billion ($1.35 billion) to be invested in hydrogen, while Austria, Germany, and Italy said they have started moving forward on a southern hydrogen corridor from North Africa to Northern Europe.

Swedish researchers have used silver alloying to improve grain growth and crystal quality in the chalcopyrite absorber, which reportedly partly compensates for its high bandgap energy. The scientists fabricated a champion cell based on a ZTO buffer layer.

Deloitte says blue and green hydrogen could supply 13% of US industrial process heat by 2050 with strong policy incentives, carbon pricing, and hydrogen supply targets as primary policy variables.

Swedish researchers have developed a method to recycle valuable metals from flexible thin film copper-indium-gallium-diselenide (CIGS) solar cells under mild leaching conditions. They showed that 100% of silver and 85% of indium can be recovered after 24 hours of leaching at room temperature using two moles of nitric acid.

As efficiency records tumble and devices become more stable, Europe is seeing the beginnings of a race to commercialize high-efficiency perovskite-silicon tandem solar products, reports Valerie Thompson.