Western Europe

DIF Capital Partners has secured a 10-year power purchase agreement (PPA) for a solar-plus-storage project in Bedfordshire, England. It includes 55 MW of solar capacity and 40 MW/80 MWh of storage, making it the first large-scale solar-plus-storage PPA in the country.

Alessandro Barin, CEO of FuturaSun, spoke with pv magazine at the recent Intersolar 2023 trade show about the PV module manufacturer’s plans to expand in China and its home market of Italy. He said European and Chinese manufacturers take different approaches to new factories, but the two sides will need to come together to build a sustainable global supply chain.

Germany’s Agri Energia has switched on a pilot agrivoltaic facility near Munich to protect hop plants from sunlight and hail, while also reducing evaporation. It is installed on steel masts that serve as support for the hop plants.

A year after achieving what at the time was a world record efficiency for a tandem perovskite-silicon solar cell, scientists from EPFL and CSEM published a paper showing the technical features of the device and how that result was made possible. The key was regulating the perovskite crystallization process using an additive in the processing sequence.

An Italian research group has assessed the advantages of combining solar power generation in greenhouses with vertical farming. The scientists claim this new approach offers better land use while increasing agricultural yield.

The Amortisator app, initially developed for the German market, is now available on the Apple and Google Play stores. Primarily targeting customer advisors, the app can be accessed for a monthly fee of €9.99 ($10.93).

German engineering conglomerate thyssenkrupp has listed shares of its hydrogen business, thyssenkrupp nucera, on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange (Prime Standard).

SNCF says it wants to devote 1,000 hectares of its land to solar development, so it can cover 20% of its electricity consumption by the end of the decade.

Dutch Economy Minister Micky Adriaansens said this week that she aims to make it impossible to install solar farms on agricultural land, with some unspecified exceptions. The plan has raised concerns at Holland Solar, with the trade group warning of potential damage to farmers and solar project developers.

While the French Constitutional Council is preparing to issue new provisions to support the deployment of new nuclear reactors this summer, nearly 800 scientists gathered around a platform to call for the end of the new nuclear program.