Western Europe

The European Commission has given its seal of approval to a government program which will drive an estimated 264 MW of solar and wind capacity across 47 islands while they await connection to the mainland grid.

Swiss battery manufacturer Leclanche and Dutch energy storage specialist S4 Energy have completed work on a 10 MW hybrid energy storage system located in Heerhugowaard, North Holland. The system will serve the frequency containment reserve market as the Dutch grid continues to face serious congestion issues.

Engie unit Tractebel is developing the technology. Elsewhere, the European Commission has approved, under state aid rules, a €900 million German scheme to support investment in green hydrogen production for EU consumption and Spanish company H2B2 Electrolysis Technologies is developing a project to generate up to 1,000kg per day of electrolytic hydrogen in California.

The French government has allocated 324 MW in its latest procurement exercise. Average prices were €76.66/MWh for large power plants (500 kWp-8 MWp) and €87.25/MWh for projects below 500 kWp.

Germany’s TÜV Rheinland is investigating how photovoltaics could be used for powering railway traction networks in a 14-month research project.

Italian manufacturer Solarday has launched a glass-glass building-integrated monocrystalline PERC panel available in red, green, gold and grey color. Its power conversion efficiency is 17.98% and its temperature coefficient is -0.39% per degree Celsius.

The 52 kW containerized solution is being developed by German start-up Solarbakery. The bakery’s production process was adapted in such a way that the majority of electricity consumption is already incurred during the day and is only baked briefly in the dark before dawn.

The German clean power company and Huhtamaki have signed a 10-year deal that will ensure the construction of two solar farms in southern Spain with an aggregate generation capacity of around 135 MWp.

In the Belgian macro-region of Flanders, residential PV system owners that decided to install smart meters and abandon net metering are currently seeing their injection tariffs being paid at €0.11, up from just €0.03 in January. This gain adds to the high value of the kilowatt-hours they self-consume and it is helping them halve the payback time of their installations.

The 25MW/48MWh battery will be the country’s largest energy storage system to date. The project is touted as the first large-scale battery project based on lithium iron phosphate (LFP) chemistry in Europe.