Simultaneously, the focus on battery technology and electric vehicles continues to gain momentum, marking a critical area of growth and investment within the cleantech sector. These advancements are essential in the transition to more sustainable and environmentally friendly transportation options, which is a key component in combating climate change and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Highlighting the sector’s expansion and potential, Adani Green Energy Ltd. has made a substantial move by finalizing an 8 GW power purchase agreement with Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI). This agreement, one of the largest in the renewable energy space, underscores the significant growth and investment interest in cleantech. It also reflects a broader shift towards renewable energy sources, showcasing the increasing feasibility and attractiveness of solar power in the global energy market.

This agreement is not only a landmark for Adani Green but also for the renewable energy sector in India and globally. It represents a significant step forward in the utilization of renewable resources, contributing to a more sustainable and green future. As the world increasingly turns towards renewable energy sources to meet its power needs, such initiatives are pivotal in driving the transition to cleaner, more sustainable energy systems.

Overall, the developments in hydrogen and EV technology, coupled with significant agreements like that of Adani Green with SECI, paint an optimistic picture for the future of cleantech. These advancements are essential in meeting the growing global demand for clean and renewable energy, and they play a crucial role in the broader efforts to address environmental concerns and promote sustainability.

Recently, the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) and the Western Electricity Coordinating Council (WECC) dropped a report about some weird stuff happening with battery storage in California in 2022. On March 9 and April 6, there were a couple of glitches that, honestly, shouldn’t have been a big deal, but they were.

NERC said these glitches were the first of their kind involving battery storage. Ryan Quint from NERC weighed in, saying, “These glitches hint that the issues we’ve seen with other modern tech might pop up with battery storage too.” He added that since battery storage is a big player in our energy future, we’ve got to make sure they’re set up right and work smoothly.

Digging deeper, NERC found that battery storage might have the same quirks as solar panels. Plus, when connecting these batteries to the grid, we might not be checking them as thoroughly as we should. And, let’s be real, some of the setup practices have been a bit sloppy.

Another thing? We’re not keeping a close enough eye on how these systems are doing, which makes it hard to figure out what went wrong when something does.

A Friendly Tip for Those Running Generators:

NERC suggests checking in with the folks who made your inverters. Make sure they won’t trip up because of:

• Random spikes in AC current
• Overvoltage on the DC bus
• Wonky DC bus voltage

Also, keep a record of how your inverters and plants are doing. Make sure the data logs quickly and doesn’t get stuck if there’s a glitch.

NERC and WECC are like, “Hey, industry folks, let’s get on top of these recommendations, okay?” They, along with some regional partners, will keep an eye on any other weirdness with modern tech in the grid. They’ll share what they find so everyone’s in the loop and can take action. Let’s keep the lights on and the tech running smoothly!

The technology behind bifacial solar panels is relatively simple. The panels consist of a layer of photovoltaic cells, which are the part of the panel that converts sunlight into electricity. These cells are typically made of silicon, which is a highly efficient material for converting sunlight into electricity.

The key difference between bifacial solar panels and traditional single sided panels is the presence of a reflective layer on the backside of the panel. This reflective layer is typically made of a highly reflective material, such as aluminum, that bounces sunlight back onto the photovoltaic cells on the backside of the panel. This allows the panel to capture sunlight from both the front and back sides, increasing the overall efficiency of the panel.

One of the major advantages of bifacial solar panels is their increased efficiency. Because they are able to capture sunlight from both sides of the panel, they are able to generate more electricity than traditional single sided panels. In fact, bifacial solar panels can be up to 30% more efficient than single sided panels under certain conditions.

Another advantage of bifacial solar panels is their versatility. Because they can capture sunlight from both the front and back sides of the panel, they can be installed in a variety of locations and configurations. For example, they can be mounted on the ground or on rooftops, and they can be used in both residential and commercial solar installations.

Additionally, bifacial solar panels are highly durable and reliable. They are typically made with high quality materials, such as tempered glass and aluminum frames, which make them resistant to extreme weather conditions and other environmental factors. This means that bifacial solar panels can be expected to last for many years with little maintenance.

Overall, bifacial solar panels are a highly efficient and versatile technology that can significantly improve the performance of any solar installation. By capturing sunlight from both sides of the panel, bifacial solar panels are able to generate more electricity and provide a higher return on investment for homeowners and businesses alike.

Ande has restarted a tender to draft the executive project for the overhaul of Acaray-Yguazú, according to BNamericas.

Acaray is on the Acaray River in Alto Paraná department and in April 2022 covered 3% of Paraguay’s demand, according to the mines and energy department. It is the only 100% state-owned hydroelectric plant in the country and is almost 50 years old.

The original call was cancelled in February 2022 because Consorcio Stantec-SCSI-IATASA’s economic offer of $17 million exceeded the initial estimate of $11.5 million. The consortium had been the top bidder among three groups after a review of technical proposals.

Under the new process, invitations were sent to shortlisted groups Afry Switzerland, Consorcio Stantec-SCSI-Iatasa, Consorcio Typsa-Norconsult, Fitchner-ISL-Cointec and Consorcio Concremat-Nova Engevix. Offers are due June 15, according to procurement information.

The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) previously approved $125 million for the $145 million revamp, which envisions the supply and installation of electromechanical and data management systems and replacement of the generation system, among other components.

Hydrogen: hype, hope and the hard truths around its role in the energy transitionWill hydrogen be the skeleton key to unlock a carbon-neutral world? Subscribe to Accelerate Hydrogen, powered by Recharge and Upstream, and get the market insight you need for this rapidly evolving global market.Sign up now

“The demonstrations will help the UK’s freight sector reduce its reliance on fossil fuels by finding which zero emission technologies are best suited to the heaviest road vehicles in the UK,” said the Department for Transport (DfT).

“The demonstrations will help gather evidence on the future refuelling and recharging infrastructure needed to drive the smooth transition to a zero-emission freight sector by 2050.”After plotting battery-electric future, truck maker Scania hedges bets with new hydrogen vehiclesRead more

The British government has already announced plans for all new HGVs sold in the UK to have zero emissions from 2040, while banning the sale of fossil-fuel-powered trucks weighing 26 tonnes or less from 2035.

“The three-year comparative programme will begin later this year to help decarbonise the UK’s freight industry with initial competitions for battery electric and hydrogen fuel cell technology launching shortly,” said the DfT in a statement.

“An open-call competition will be launched for manufacturers, energy providers and fleet and infrastructure operators to showcase their green technology on UK roads. This will begin with demonstrations of battery electric and hydrogen fuel cell HGVs.”Article continues below the advert

It added that the programme “could see hundreds more zero-emission HGVs rolled out across the nation and save the industry money, thanks to overall running costs of green vehicles being cheaper than petrol and diesel equivalents. More efficient deliveries will in turn enable haulage companies to keep the price of goods down and protect customers from rising costs”.

Michelle Gardner, acting deputy director of public policy at freight trade association Logistics UK, said that British trucking companies were committed to decarbonising their operations, but need clarity on the path to zero emissions.

“The trials announced today will play a crucial role in identifying the right technological solutions to help enable this.”‘Hydrogen unlikely to play major role in road transport, even for heavy trucks’: FraunhoferRead moreThe case for hydrogen trucks | Grid limitations will make long-distance battery-electric haulage ‘near impossible’: Hyzon Motors CEORead more

In terms of sector decarbonisation, the jury is still out on whether fuel cells or batteries make the most sense for road freight.

For instance, a study by the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research in Germany earlier this year found that hydrogen was unlikely to play a major role in trucks due to the higher costs involved compared to batteries.

But H₂ trucking advocates, such as Hyzon Motors CEO Craig Knight, argue that electric grids will not be able to cope with large numbers of long-distance battery HGVs.

Swedish truck maker Scania seemed to come down firmly on the side of battery electric trucks in January 2021 when it declared that the use of hydrogen for heavy-duty vehicles “will be limited since three times as much renewable electricity is needed to power a hydrogen truck compared to a battery electric truck”. But in April this year, it announced that it was building “an initial 20 fuel-cell trucks” after receiving an order from electrolyser and fuel-cell maker Cummins.

Scania’s head of e-mobility, Frederik Allard, said last month: “We have been clear that battery electric is what we see as the main track for all applications. That said, we are open to what our customers want also with regards to other solutions, like hydrogen.

“In some operations and geographies where battery electric vehicles are not optimal, we see that fuel cell electric vehicle will be used. We keep a close dialogue with our customers on what is best both for their total operating economy and our planet.”

The UK government has not revealed when its £200m Zero Emission Road Freight HGV Demonstrators Programme will begin, only to say that “initial competitions for battery electric and hydrogen fuel cell technology [will be] launching shortly”.

The DfT also unveiled the results of a public consultation on its plans to phase out fossil-fuel HGVs, in which some respondents argued that zero-emission vehicles would not help the government reach its 2050 net-zero goal unless lifecycle emissions were taken into account, as the electricity used for both batteries and hydrogen production — and the energy required to manufacture the vehicles — could be derived from fossil fuels.

The UK government rejected this lifecycle approach, without explaining why.

We haven’t yet received confirmation that we’ve been approved in the full amount, but given that very few projects have applied for this tender, and ours is highly rated, we’re hoping for the best,” said Bjelovar Mayor Dario Hrebak.

Mayor Hrebak did not express any reluctance over having to provide the other half of the required amount for the project. ”I believe that in the near future there will be more tenders for such projects, so I believe that we will find the required amount. This is a great investment, we’ll definitely realise it,” Hrebak added.

Hrebak estimated that a building permit can be approved by the end of the year and that work on the well itself can be completed by the end of next year.

”We have information that in other parts of the city there are underground springs where the water temperature is between 70 and 100 degrees celsius. Bjelovar has a great geothermal potential that we definitely plan to utilise,” concluded Hrebak.

In 2019, the 16.5 MW Velika Ciglena geothermal power plant officially became Croatia’s first geothermal power plant. According to Mayor Hrebak, Ciglena produces 130 million Kuna (EUR 17.1 million) worth of electricity per year, so he is also expecting millions in energy savings for Bjelovar.

The monthly sales volume was the lowest for the month in a decade, underscoring the economic toll of the tough restrictions China put in place in April in Shanghai and other cities to control the spread of COVID.

The tally released on Wednesday by the China Association of Automobile Manufactuers (CAAM) includes sales to dealers of passenger cars and commercial vehicles. Retail sales of passenger cars alone dropped almost 36% in April, data released Tuesday by a separate trade group showed.

Overall, vehicle sales in the first four months of 2022 were down 12% from the same period a year earlier in the world’s biggest car market, the CAAM said.

The bright spot remained sales of electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids, a fast-growing segment China has supported as “new energy nehicles”, and where made-in-China brands now dominate. Sales of EVs and plug-in hybrids were up 45% in April and more than doubled over the first four months of the year from 2021 levels.

Among Chinese brands, BYD was the biggest winner, posting a 164% jump in sales in the first four months of the year, including April when its U.S. rival Tesla was hobbled by supply constraints.

BYD, which also makes EV batteries, accounted for 32% of all batteries installed in electric vehicles in April, trailing CATL, which accounted for 38%, data from the China Automotive and Battery Innovation Alliance showed.

Shares in BYD closed up 8.3%. Shares in CATL were up 8%.

Tesla’s sales plunged 98% in April with exports down to zero, as Shanghai’s lockdown disrupted logistics near its plant, data released Tuesday showed.

Tesla Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk said on Tuesday he expected China’s COVID restrictions to be less disruptive and that China sales would account for 25% to 30% of its overall sales in the long term.

“I had conversations with the Chinese government in recent days and it’s clear that the lockdowns are being lifted rapidly,” he said.

The CAAM and some private analysts said they also expected production and demand to begin to catch up in coming weeks for the losses in April, when dozens of cities were in full or partial lockdown.

Daiwa Capital Markets said in a note on Tuesday it expected major automakers would “catch up in the coming months to make up for the sales loss in April” with normal production levels in Shanghai this month

Côte d’Ivoire will soon be getting a much-needed boost to its energy supply. It will be home to one of the region’s largest biomass-based power plants, thanks to an injection of funding.

In June, AFD’s subsidiary for the private sector, Proparco and the Emerging Africa Infrastructure Fund (EAIF) signed off on a combination of loans and grants to build the new power plant and connect it to Côte d’Ivoire’s electricity grid. The plant will be funded through a loan of €165 million and a grant of €13 million from Proparco and EAIF.

Over a period of 25 years, Côte d’Ivoire-based company, Biovéa Énergie will be responsible for designing, building, operating and transferring the 46 MW plant. 

To be built in the Aboisso Department in south-eastern Côte d’Ivoire, it will be fuelled by some 450,000 tons of palm waste supplied by Palmci, a subsidiary of Ivorian agrobusiness group, Sifca. About 30% of the biomass needed for the plant will come from Palmci’s palm oil plantations, with the remaining 70% being collected from small-scale growers in the region.

Creating jobs and clean energy

The project will help to create 500 local jobs during the construction phase and more than 1,000 jobs or full-time equivalents once the plant is up and running. The biomass supplied by small-scale growers should see them boost their revenues by 20%. Some 12,000 of them are currently part of the company’s supply chain.

Once operational, the Biovéa project is expected to avoid roughly 340,000 TEQ of CO2 emissions a year. “Biovéa is an innovative renewable energy project that puts Côte d’Ivoire on the right track when it comes to meeting the commitments outlined in the Paris Agreement,” says Grégory Clemente, Proparco’s CEO. “It will contribute to the development of a sustainable agricultural supply chain and the production of renewable energy from local fuels.”

Raphaël Ruat, CEO of Biovéa Énergie said: “construction work will begin in September 2021, and according to the schedule outlined by Côte d’Ivoire’s Energy Minister, the plant will open in September 2024. This is an innovative project that will open up a new chapter for the agribusiness sector.” 

Earlier this month, Spain’s GRI Renewable Industries penned a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the capital group of Poland’s state Industrial Development Agency (GK ARP) for the development of a factory in the Baltic coast city of Gdańsk.

The investment is estimated at more than €100 million and the annual output of the factory is expected to reach 100 towers, which will serve turbines of over 13 MW of capacity, according to Gospodarka Morska, a marine news service.

That announcement was then followed last week by news that another Spanish manufacturer, Windar, would invest €80 million in a separate offshore wind tower factory in Poland. Construction of the 120,000-square-metre complex will begin this year.

The plant is also expected to produce 100 towers per year for new-generation offshore turbines of an output of between 14 MW and 16 MW. The company says 450 jobs will be directly created at the facility.

Poland has sought to develop its wind sector as part of an effort to move away from reliance on coal. Last month, the country generated a record amount of wind energy – over 2.5 terawatt-hours (TWh) – with turbines meeting around a third of the country’s electricity needs at times.

Before 2016, Poland had one of Europe’s fastest-growing wind sectors. But restrictions introduced by the new government that year made it almost impossible to build new onshore wind farms, resulting in investment drying up since then.

That same government now hopes to increase the share of wind in Poland’s energy mix, and last February it introduced an Offshore Act regulating the development of wind farms in the Polish Baltic Sea for up to a 10.9 GW capacity to be either operational or under development by 2027.

Poland’s first offshore wind farm is due to be launched by state energy firm PGE in 2026, with an initial capacity of just over 1 GW, increasing to 2.5 GW by 2030.

Solar industry leaders from across the United States and the globe gathered in an informative and especially timely virtual event as the pv magazine Roundtables USA took place on November 9. 

As the U.S. and global solar markets rapidly recover from disruptions caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, a vision of optimal, resilient solar PV solutions to speed decarbonization and tackle the existential climate challenge was shared. Through a total of six hours of curated sessions that were moderated by Senior U.S. Editor David Wagman, U.S. Editor Tim Sylvia, global Editor in Chief Jonathan Gifford, and Associate Editor Ryan Kennedy, equipment manufacturers, researchers, policymakers, and other stakeholders shared their view of how to accelerate deployment in pursuit of national and global goals.

Session two focuses on strategies to deploy solar rapidly under a changing landscape. Watch here

Session 2: Accelerating solar deployment

Garrett Nilsen, acting director of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Solar Energy Technologies Office opened the second session, outlining the Biden Administration’s clean energy goals with a focus on solar energy, and the related initiatives DOE is pursuing.

Next, a panel of four led a talk titled “Lead, follow, or get out of the way: What solar needs to expand.” Panel members who were interviewed by David Wagman and Tim Sylvia included Suzanne Leta, head of policy and strategy for SunPower; Dean Solon founder of Shoals Technologies Group; Elizabeth Sanderson, executive director of  Solar Energy International; and Paul Wormser, vice president of technology for Clean Energy Associates.

The group covered a range of subjects, including highlights of the DOE-backed SolarAPP+, an automated permitting app that is slashing residential solar permit wait times. A call for greater diversity in the solar workforce was shared, as only 30% of the workforce are women, and only 8% are Black. It also weighed in on how the U.S. may be able to expand its solar manufacturing base and over what period of time.