Sweden

Swedish heat pump manufacturer Aira has secured financing to expand its business, which targets the residential market. It has also obtained a grant to establish a heat pump production facility in Poland.

In November 2022, Germany’s Energie Baden Württemberg and steelmaker Salzgitter Group signed one of Europe’s first power purchase agreements (PPAs) for hydrogen production. More have followed and with the European Union introducing rules to govern green hydrogen, an industry is planning for its future.

Researchers in Sweden sought to raise the efficiency of ground source heat pumps by combining their operation with that of PVT systems and free cooling. Through a series of simulations, they found that this integrated solution may reduce borehole length and land area requirements.

China-based TAILG has revealed its new sodium-ion battery technology. The company’s luxury e-bikes will be the first to feature its sodium-ion batteries, and they will initially be available in China.

Two workers have died in separate accidents at Northvolt’s battery gigafactory in Sweden in recent weeks, with a technician succumbing to burns after an explosion on a production line and a construction worker killed by a falling fork stand. pv magazine has learned that the equipment that caught fire was not a part of the battery manufacturing process.

Enerpoly, a Swedish startup that produces zinc-ion battery storage systems with durations of two to 10 hours, plans to scale production up to 100 MWh per year by 2026.

Nilar, a Swedish producer of nickel metal hydride batteries, has filed for insolvency and is now looking for a new owner.

Swedish thin-film solar manufacturer Midsummer inked a deal with the European Union Innovation Fund grant to receive €32.3 million ($34.8 million) to pay for a third of the company’s soon-to-be-built copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS) solar module production facility in Sweden.

UK-based researchers have developed a novel method to estimate the amount of defrost cycles a heat pump will experience in the winter and how much energy it would require to implement the cycles. The results of their simulation showed a strong relationship between the number of defrost cycles and the ambient temperature.

Swedish battery maker Northvolt has developed its first sodium-ion battery in partnership with Uppsala University spinoff Altris. The cell has been validated for an energy density of more than 160 Wh/kg and is designed primarily for energy storage applications.