Sweden

The Fresher project, funded by the EU’s European Maritime and Fishery Fund, aims to develop better and cheaper mooring and anchoring systems for floating solar. The initiative is backed by Portugal utility EDP, which has recently begun to install floating projects.

Britain’s renewable energy trade body has published a report examining the state of flexibility market readiness in nine European markets. The result makes for sobering reading for Germany, France and the U.K.

Researchers at Sweden’s Lund University have discovered a mechanism by which iron-based solar cells lose up to 30% of their charge. Understanding how the loss occurs, say the researchers, will be the first step to closing the loophole and developing more efficient solar cells based on the abundant material.

Corporations in the auto industry, battery manufacturing and mining have joined forces to establish reliable due diligence reporting on raw minerals. Volvo will be among the first to move on the issue by putting its cobalt supply chain under scrutiny early next year.

A 20 MW solar park is planned near a Stockholm highway to generate power for a tenants association. The project is expected to generate cheaper power than grid electricity and will also trade clean energy certificates on the Swedish-Norwegian market.

Amid high hopes for the European Commission presidency that is about to start, attendees at a recent event in Berlin tempered optimism by renewing calls for an industrial policy for the bloc.

A study from Sweden seeks to consider how PV could be sympathetically installed on historic buildings. The researchers propose a target-based approach for assessing panel visibility.

Where seasonal storage is paramount, hydrogen comes into play. Under-the-radar solar market Sweden has presented its hydrogen projects and technological solutions to overcome the country’s natural solar barriers.

The German Energy Agency has drawn up a list of proposed measures which it says could help the world’s biggest solar market accelerate its clean energy plans through the adoption of subsidy-free – private – power purchase agreements.

The devices, developed by a European research team, are said to have twice the energy density of conventional aluminum devices. The scientists used a cathode made of anthraquinone, instead of one based on graphene, increasing energy density.