Blog

Another floating solar park goes online in the Netherlands

Dutch water supplier Evides Waterbedrijf has commissioned a 1.6 MW floating PV plant at one of its facilities near Rotterdam. It is now considering the construction of more floating solar plants on three other reservoirs, including a 350-hectare water surface. Dutch water supplier Evides Waterbedrijf has completed the construction of a 1.62 MW floating solar…
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Agrivoltaics works better with leafy greens, root crops

U.S. researchers have created a new model to assess the overlap between solar potential and underlying land use. The areas with the largest potential are the western United States, southern Africa, and the Middle East. The researchers concluded that croplands, grasslands, and wetlands are the top three land classes for PV projects linked to agricultural…
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A ten-year PPA for 50 MW Spanish project

Dutch solar developer Sonnedix will supply Norwegian renewables company Statkraft with around 100 GWh of green electricity annually from 2021 to 2031. The electricity will be generated by a solar plant planned in Badajoz. Sonnedix also announced the acquisition of 4.6 MW more Spanish solar capacity. Dutch solar developer Sonnedix has secured a 10-year power purchase agreement…
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Siemens and Engie plan 12 MW green hydrogen and gas project in France

A €15.2 million power-to-X-to-power hydrogen storage facility is being planned in Saillat-sur-Vienne, in Nouvelle-Aquitaine. The project partners want to use renewable energy from the grid and water to produce and store electrolyzed hydrogen. It would then be mixed with natural gas to power an upgraded, 12 MW Siemens SGT-400 industrial gas turbine which previously generated…
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Germany installed 380 MW of solar in April

The rooftop segment maintained strong growth but utility scale PV saw a slowdown on previous months. In the first four months of 2020, newly deployed PV systems added up to 1,479.5 MW of generation capacity, compared with around 1.6 GW in the same period of last year. The nation’s cumulative PV capacity hit 50.46 GW…
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Electric aircraft engines could take to the skies over Australia

Zero-emission, low-cost regional flights with just eight other sanitized folk and a disinfected pilot! Yes, Covid-19 is warping our view of the future but the successful electrically-powered maiden flight of a Cessna Caravan last week offers the potential for new modes of transport to support a wider economic recovery in Australia. No matter how keen…
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France embraces solar with viticulture, arboriculture and market gardening

The French government has selected seven agrivoltaic projects with a total generation capacity of 12 MW in its latest tender for innovative PV technology. Specialist Sun’Agri is working with regional climate and energy body the Agence régionale Énergie Climat (AREC) Occitanie to realize seven agrivoltaic installations allocated in the latest national tender for innovative PV projects. The market gardening, viticulture and arboriculture installations,…
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Pouch lamination technique for solar cell encapsulation

Scientists in India have used a pouch laminator to encapsulate a polycrystalline solar cell. The resulting device, the researchers claim, showed better UV photon absorption than solar cells treated with a polymer surface coating. Researchers from the Madurai Kamaraj University in India have claimed pouch lamination – of the sort routinely used to strengthen documents…
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Used EV batteries for large scale solar energy storage

MIT scientists have suggested used electric vehicle batteries could offer a more viable business case than purpose-built systems for the storage of grid scale solar power in California. Such ‘second life’ EV batteries, may cost only 60% of their original purchase price to deploy and can be effectively aggregated for industrial scale storage even if…
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Total develops electric aircraft refuelling truck

The French oil and gas company will develop the vehicle with engineering compatriot Gaussin. Intended for the Airbus industrial site in Toulouse, the vehicle will be equipped with a lithium-ion battery made by Total subsidiary Saft and will be able to tow two 30-ton fuel tanks. Total group has announced it will develop the world’s first…
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