Western Europe

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.

Swedish business Evolar is working on a bolt-on piece of production equipment which would upgrade the cell lines of conventional manufacturers with a perovskite lift in performance.

Developed by German researchers, the 20.9%-efficient device was built with an architecture avoiding the use of the ionic dopants or metal oxide nanoparticles that are commonly used to contact the cell, as these can be subject to secondary reactions at higher temperatures.

Developed by Japanese PV equipment provider NPC Incorporated, the solar module disassembly line is claimed to enable the reuse of frames, junction boxes, intact broken glass, solar cells and EVA sheets.

The device was designed by scientists in Portugal to optimize light absorption by the semiconductor and ensure an effective diffusion of redox species while offering minimal electronic and ionic transport resistance. The cell has a 25cm² photoactive area and relies on ferrocyanide/anthraquinone redox flow chemistry and a nanostructured hematite photoelectrode.

Developed by researchers in Finland, the solar cell is intended to be used as part of lattice-matched multi-junction solar cells. It achieved a short-circuit current density of 15.2 mA/cm² and external quantum efficiency of 0.79.

Green hydrogen can now compete with hydrogen produced with fossil fuels in Germany, according to new research. Scientists have looked at six different scenarios for alkaline and PEM electrolyzers and identified alkaline devices powered by grid-connected PV as the cheapest option.

The Italian inverter maker and the Algerian electronics manufacturer are joining forces to produce solar inverters in Algeria. The location of the planned manufacturing facility was not disclosed.