United States

Enapter has secured four new orders for its AEM Nexus 1000 megawatt-class electrolyzer, while Fraunhofer IWU says it has started working on electron beam welding technology to overcome the speed limitations of laser beam scanner welding.

The US Department of Energy (DoE) has announced up to $22 million in funds under its Renewable Energy Siting through Technical Engagement and Planning (R-STEP) program.

Researchers in the U.S. have repurposed a commonplace chemical used in water treatment facilities to develop an all-liquid, iron-based redox flow battery for large-scale energy storage. Their lab-scale battery exhibited strong cycling stability over one thousand consecutive charging cycles, while maintaining 98.7% of its original capacity.

Maxeon said it has achieved a 24.9% efficiency rating for a full-scale Maxeon 7 solar panel using its IBC technology. The US National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) confirmed the result.

There may be a global solar boom but a drastic revision of California’s net metering program has ruptured the industry overnight and is affecting everyone from installers to financiers to makers of power electronics.

The German government has confirmed the suitability of Hyphen’s hydrogen project in Namibia for potential investment, while Topsoe has completed a 2,000-hour demonstration of 12 solid oxide electrolyzer cell (SOEC) stacks.

An international research team explained that, although inverter clipping is initially effective in mitigating soiling losses, these losses could become more visible with time, as solar module degradation makes clipping less frequent. They also warned that inverter undersizing alone may not be enough to mitigate soiling losses and suggested cleaning as an additional way to reduce them.

The US-based manufacturer said its new heat pump system has 5-ton capacity and a coefficient of performance of up to 3.95. It uses difluoromethane (R32) as the refrigerant and relies on DC inverter enhanced vapor injection (EVI) technology.

By agreeing to limit exports to the grid at peak generation hours, distributed energy resources like rooftop solar and energy storage can now avoid delays and costly infrastructure upgrades.

Lower costs, better supply chains and steady demand are driving an energy storage boom in the United States, according to a new report from Wood Mackenzie.