France

French scientists have proposed the use of radiative sky cooling as a passive cooling technique to cut PV module temperatures by 10 C. They claim the method could improve performance by more than 5 W/m2.

Financiers and investors have always understood that PV power plants play a more prominent role than just generating profits – they also produce electricity without emitting carbon. Lately, the sector is discovering that PV can fulfill a much larger range of environmental functions – improving biodiversity, removing carbon from enriched soils, and producing food in an environmentally sustainable way. Everoze Partner Ragna Schmidt-Haupt argues that putting ecological sustainability at the heart of PV project planning and operation should become the new standard.

The recharging station was designed by French automation group Sirea. It is powered by a solar carport and a small electrolyser.

Green Investment Group, owned by Macquarie, has launched Cero Generation, which will operate on a European scale and carry out both ground-mounted and commercial scale power generation projects. It will also provide integrated energy storage solutions.

Two French companies have collaborated on the development of the Osmo-Watt system, which is powered by solar panels. They claim that the technology can produce up to 100 cubic meters of drinking water per day.

Belgian start-up Sunslice has developed small, portable, high-performance solar panels that can be applied to backpacks and be used as rechargers for smartphones and watches.

Sustainability-linked debt financing is experiencing ever increasing popularity and the success of green bonds has driven other products linked to social performance and other sustainability criteria. The total volume of such investments to date passed the $2 trillion point this year.

International researchers have analysed the potential of sodium-based energy storage and found recent technical advances have arrived faster than those for the lithium-ion batteries which have been studied for three decades. Issues remain, however, before sodium constitutes a complementary option to lithium.

The latest edition of the World Nuclear Industry Status Report indicates the stagnation of the sector continues. Just 2.4 GW of new nuclear generation capacity came online last year, compared to 98 GW of solar. The world’s operational nuclear power capacity had declined by 2.1%, to 362 GW, at the end of June.

French start-up Solar Cloth has secured a patent for a PV shade screen for solar greenhouses.