Technology

In other news, GM and Honda are jointly developing affordable EVs, the Biden administration holds an EV industry meeting, and Mercedes-Benz Energy agrees to supply EV batteries to BatteryLoop for its scalable, circular energy storage products.

If you’re thinking about buying an electric vehicle, whether due to soaring fuel prices or to lower your greenhouse gas emissions, where you live can make a huge difference to how climate-friendly your car is.

Bosch’s new solid oxide fuel cell prototype has an electrical efficiency of more than 60% and an overall efficiency above 85%. It also has a targeted power output of 10 kW and can produce up to 3 kW of thermal energy.

In September 2021, not long after a fire at the Victorian Big Battery made international headlines, Neoen’s original “Big Battery” – the Hornsdale Power Reserve in South Australia – was sued by the Australian Energy Regulator for failing to provide all of the frequency control ancillary services it had agreed to offer. The case is now before Australia’s Federal Court, where the judgement could set an important precedent for network operations in Australia, as well as the transition to large-scale batteries.

Transgrid and the Commonwealth Government have come to a $75 million underwriting agreement for the construction of the Victoria to New South Wales Interconnector West, a key piece of network infrastructure in the Australian Market Operator’s Integrated System Plan for the increased integration of renewables and maintaining reliability amidst the retirement of coal-fired power.

Another of the five community-sized Tesla batteries the Queensland government promised to install at substations across the state is on the verge of energisation in Bundaberg.

The Genap Energy Cover uses HyET Solar Powerfoil thin-film solar modules, rated at 12.0% efficiency, for agricultural water storage and reservoirs, with an initial focus on the greenhouse and horticulture markets in the Netherlands. Genap said a 12kWp test setup had a generation density of 60W/m2, rising to 120W/m2 within a year, with an eventual target of 165W/m2.

Stanford University scientists have developed a solar cell with 24 hours of power generation via an embedded thermoelectric generator, which extracts power from the radiative cooler at night. Extra daytime power from excess heating comes from the cell itself.

The University of New England’s own 3.2MW solar farm is proving its worth in more ways than one, not only as an independent renewable energy source for the university, but also as the setting of a pilot study to better understand the impact of large-scale solar on biodiversity. The study aims to learn whether solar plants are useful habitats for wildlife and if simple land management strategies during construction could better cater to native species.

US scientists have developed a battery that can retain 92% of its initial capacity over periods of 12 weeks, with a theoretical energy density of 260W/hour per kg. It was built with an aluminium anode and a nickel cathode, immersed in molten-salt electrolyte.