Renewables

The Parque Solar Zonda project is expected to be built by Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales (YPF) in three 100 MW phases and to require a total surface of 300 hectares.

Australia has hit a historic milestone – it has reached 25GW of installed solar capacity. As the Australian PV Institute noted on Monday, that’s more solar per capita than anywhere else in the world.

The project is relying on Sineng’s 3.15MW turnkey battery stations EH-3150-HA-UD 35 and is the first phase of a 300MW/600MWh that the Chinese state-owned power company China Three Gorges Corporation is building in China’s Shandong province.

Researchers from the United States have investigated how fuel cells and electrolyzers may be able to operate under intermittent availability provided by both wind and solar and have found that an affordable hydrogen-based system for seasonal energy storage could be achieved at a hydrogen price lower than $3, produced from inexpensive renewable electricity at $0.02/kWh.

Recent analysis from German consultancy Enervis has shown that only 40% of the electricity to be generated by solar capacity in Poland’s latest auction for utility scale renewables will be sold under the exercise’s contracts for difference regime, and that the remaining share will be sold under bilateral power purchase agreements or to the spot market.

France has set a new target under which it will install 5GW of new PV capacity per year.

Verdagy has secured a $25 million investment for its new electrolyzer technology, which provides hydrogen fuel for heavy industrial applications. The membrane-based technology uses large active area cells, high current densities, and broad operating ranges to deliver hydrogen at scale.

The developers of the proposed 1.5GW Marinus Link transmission project, which would link Tasmania and the Australian mainland via an undersea electricity interconnector, have launched a new engineering survey to identify the most suitable corridor for the cables.

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Ames Laboratory launched a new catalyst based on nitrogen and carbon to extract hydrogen from hydrogen storage materials at mild temperatures and under normal atmospheric conditions. Furthermore, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said that the country is working on attracting new investments in electric vehicles and hydrogen and Norwegian consultancy and classification society DNV launched, together with 18 industry partners, a new Joint Industry Project (JIP) to enhance the standardization for hydrogen production systems that use renewable energy-powered electrolysis to produce green hydrogen.

Scientists have investigated how utility-scale solar may be used to power multistage flashing-brine recirculation (MSF-BR) water desalination plants in Aqaba, Jordan. They found the facility would be sufficient to provide the entire city with drinking water. The proposed system configuration comprises a 30 MW solar plant and a standar MSF-BR unit.