Europe

A joint fund with roughly $125 million from both the Australian and German governments has opened today and is seeking applications from projects across the value chain of renewable green hydrogen.

A consortium led by Australian financial group Macquarie Asset Management will acquire French solar developer Reden Solar. The $3.7 billion (€2.5 billion) transaction is expected to be finalised in the third quarter of this year.

Australian-based mining giant Fortescue has commenced the development of an electric train that recharges itself using gravity after the resources company this week settled its $310 million purchase of UK-based technology and engineering services business Williams Advanced Engineering.

Developed by Germany-based hydrogen specialist Enapter, the EL 4.0 electrolyser is based on a patented anion exchange membrane (AEM) technology. Commercial production is currently being prepared at the company’s Italian plant and the first shipments should be made in the summer.

British start-up Gravitricity secured funds from the UK Department of Business Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS) to build its second gravity-based storage project. The feasibility study is expected to be finalised by the end of this year.

Australian technology company Lavo’s innovative energy storage system – based on storing green hydrogen in a patented metal hydride – has attracted the attention of the UK government which has provided financial backing to allow for a demonstration facility to be installed in England’s northwest.

The stadium of German football club SC Freiburg will host a 2.4MW rooftop solar array that will be built with heterojunction modules provided by Swiss manufacturer Meyer Burger.

TOPCon solar modules will gain more market share if their average efficiency, already higher than that of PERC panels, continues to improve, according to Stefan Glunz, PV research chief at Germany’s Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE. In an upcoming pv magazine webinar on the potential of TOPCon tech, Glunz will show how to reduce costs and increase efficiency.

French start-up Rosi Solar has developed an industrial solution claimed to be capable of recovering high purity silicon, silver and copper contained in end-of-life PV modules. The company’s technology is based on a pyrolysis process that makes it possible to isolate the different metals from the cells.

Researchers in Italy are combining PV with latent heat thermal storage (LHTM) and other renewable energy sources to maximize clean energy consumption in buildings. The 47kW PV array and LHTM system work independently, but the scientists said that a heat pump could be used to link them.