Western Europe

The Irish Solar Energy Association and AirPV have developed an online tool to calculate rooftop solar potential, enabling homeowners and businesses to estimate payback times, annual savings, and emission reductions.

US-based Maxar Technologies used satellite imagery imagery with resolution of 31 cm to 15.5 cm to identify rooftop PV systems in southern Germany. The company claims its new approach was able to identify 97.8% of the solar arrays with high confidence.

The first tender under the European Union’s new €40 million ($41.8 million) multilateral solar scheme – targeting 5 MW to 100 MW projects based in Finland and providing energy to Luxembourg – has been ‘oversubscribed’ with bids ‘significantly exceeding target volumes’, the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Energy recently announced.

Mattiq says it is evaluating “millions of combinations” of different alternatives to iridium for PEM electrolysis, while Hystar, Air Liquide, and Trillium Energy Solutions have revealed plans for the North American hydrogen market.

Heineken España and Engie España have commissioned a 30 MW concentrated solar power (CSP) plant in Seville, Spain, with 68 MWh of storage capacity, marking the inauguration of Europe’s largest concentrated solar power plant.

With utility scale solar installations accelerating, Philip Wolfe, founder of PV data consultancy Wiki-Solar, drills into the data to highlight some interesting variations in relative progress around the world.

A research team in Spain has developed a PV system layout for super-intensive olive groves. The scientists said the system must ensure high levels of transparency in order to avoid a negative impact on the olive yield.

The Italian authorities have allocated 58 MW of renewables capacity in the nation’s latest procurement exercise for clean energy. Developers have offered a maximum discount ranging between 2% and 2.1% from the auction ceiling price of €0.065 ($0.068)/kWh.

A French-Spanish research team developed organic photovoltaic modules embedded into plastic parts through high throughput injection molding. The researchers injected thermoplastic polyurethane in the modules and found it enhances their mechanical stability while keeping a high flexibility.

Encouraged by lab results and a feasibility study, Swedish startup, Green14, in collaboration with Sweden’s Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) plans to build a pilot-scale reactor to make solar grade silicon with a hydrogen plasma process. The company sees the pilot as a step towards using a more sustainable method to produce solar grade silicon for the PV industry at its own gigawatt-scale plant.