United Kingdom

Nova Innovation, a leader in tidal energy tech, says it will install Scotland’s first floating PV demonstrator later this year. The company currently has a multi-megawatt international pipeline under development.

The European Investment Bank has agreed to provide €400 million ($406.5 million) in funds for the €2.8 billion project. Construction on the infrastructure should begin by the end of this year.

MSE international and its partners have concluded the feasibility study for an organic large-scale flow battery project in Portsmouth, England. The 650 kW/6.1 MWh project might end up having have a lower levelized cost of electricity than lithium-ion or vanadium redox flow batteries.

Under a new energy strategy, the UK government aims to expand solar deployment by up to five times by 2035, in addition to developing 24 GW of nuclear power by 2050 and 50 GW of offshore wind by 2030.

The new measure will come into force on April 1 and will be in place for five years.

A UK consortium is developing an organic flow battery technology that could be used in ports to supply power to visiting vessels and in-port assets such as cranes and port vehicles. The electro-chemistry for the batteries is being supplied by German battery manufacturer CMBlu, which developed a flow battery relying on high-performance energy storage molecules that are entirely organic.

Churches use energy mostly during the day, which makes them ideal buildings to deploy solar panels. Scientists in the United Kingdom have assessed the financial viability of a rooftop PV project for Bath Abbey and found that it could become profitable after 13 years.

Another round of the so-called “cap and floor” regime is expected to be held next year and will help the U.K. reach a total electricity interconnection capacity of 16 GW by 2030. The new interconnectors will likely be intended to harness large amounts of power from big offshore wind farm clusters in the North Sea.

The fourth round of the Contracts for Difference (CfD) scheme is expected to allocate 12 GW of renewable energy capacity. Solar and on-shore wind, which the British government considers well-established technologies, are entitled to secure up to 5 GW, but the limited budget these two technologies have been awarded may not be enough to reach this level.

UK-based Xlinks is planning to build 10.5 GW of wind and solar in Morocco and sell the power generated by the huge plant in the UK. This should be made possible by a 3,800 km high voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission line that would be connected to locations in Wales and Devon. The company’s CEO, Simon Morrish, spoke with pv magazine about the ambitious project, and on how it should become feasible.