Renewables

The International Energy Agency’s latest report says solar and wind energy are well placed to meet Southeast Asia’s growing electricity demand. It adds that while additional deployment will create flexibility challenges, most countries in the region can integrate more solar and wind energy without requiring major system changes.

New research from the Netherlands showed that renewables and short-term storage can meet around 92.5% of Europe’s electricity demand in future energy scenarios, with the remaining 7.5% being satisfied by green hydrogen. The scientists considered Europe as fully self-sufficient with zero import-export of power or hydrogen, with each of the 37 countries included in the modeling having a self-sufficiency rate of at least 80%.

Researchers in India have developed two solar tracker optimization techniques can purportedly increase power generation by up to 54.36% when combined. One uses a light sensor and the other relies on data from GPS and a real-time clock.

At the Solar & Storage Live trade fair, Swiss and European wholesalers were represented with products from manufacturers in Germany, Lithuania, Norway, Switzerland, and, of course, China. Some manufacturers also had their own booths, and there was also a new area for installers.

Spanish startup Nomad Solar Energy and Full&fast have deployed a portable solar-plus-storage system at a Madrid farm to provide off-grid power for irrigation.

Scientists in China have created an optimization technique for an electric vehicle charging station that uses PV, battery storage, and a vehicle-to-grid operation. Considering the uncertainty of PV generation and the randomness of EV load, the system uses two-level optimization, day-ahead and intra-day.

The annual European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference (EU PVSEC) got underway today, this year in Bilbao. Conversations on the first morning focused on the need for strong policy support across multiple areas of renewable energy. While the week is sure to be filled with new ideas on the technological side, it’s clear that ensuring policies to support further growth in renewable energy is a growing challenge. Those working in the solar industry and research community need to reach a wider audience, and one that may not be as easy to convince.

A Slovak research team has developed a mathematical model for determining the optimum tilt angle of a solar system ranging from 0° to 90°. Their framework was tested on an experimental setup in Czechia and attained 93.9% accuracy in predicting the system’s energy balance.

The projects, equivalent to 1.88 GW of electrolyzer capacity, were withdrawn after choosing not to continue with the agreement procedure or for being unable to provide a signed completion guarantee. As a result, ten hydrogen projects representing 774 MW in capacity from the reserve list have been invited to prepare grant agreements.

The German manufacturer said its full-black back-contact solar panel has a power conversion efficiency of up to 23.52%.