Germany

Cemvita claims it can produce hydrogen at the “lowest possible cost,” Deutsche Bahn and Fortescue Future Industries have announced plans to jointly modify diesel engines for locomotives, and the Canadian province of Alberta has started promoting its hydrogen potential in Japan.

German investment management company Aquila Capital has expanded its Antipodean asset base, inking a deal to buy a 220 MW/440 MWh portfolio of battery energy storage projects in South Australia from Spanish renewables developed Gransolar Group.

BMW Group said it is targeting the premium segment with its iX5 Hydrogen car, Topsoe revealed that it will invest US$267 million (AU$392m) to build the world’s largest SOEC electrolyzer plant in Denmark, and Bosch announced plans to invest US$200 million (AU$292m) in US fuel cell production.

Integrated clean home energy and smart appliances platform lets users run appliances on battery-stored solar energy in pre-determined time frames.

Germany has launched the world’s first operational hydrogen trains and US researchers have presented a novel design for a tubular PEM fuel cell. ABB and Hydrogen Optimized, meanwhile, have expanded their strategic ties and Slovakia has moved forward with a major gas-blending pilot project.

New Zealand and Germany have partnered up to provide NZ$2 million (AU$1.8m) each to three green hydrogen research projects, including one to develop more efficient anion exchange membrane electrolysers which promise to be cheaper and more sustainable to manufacture.

SMA’s Home Solutions segment was particularly badly hit as the PV inverter manufacturer struggled to meet the demand due to the shortage of materials. The sales and results in the first half of 2022 were therefore significantly worse than in 2021. The company now wants to take “a series of measures to improve its long-term ability to deliver.”

The ‘cradle-to-cradle’ certification is considered a globally recognised holistic product quality standard. The assessment is made for five categories: material health, recyclability of materials, energy management and CO2 emissions, water management and social responsibility

GlobalData has predicted that the global electrolyser market will hit 8.52 GW by 2026. BP and Thyssenkrupp have agreed to cooperate on the use of hydrogen in the steel sector, while electrolyser supplier Nel Hydrogen has secured orders in Australia and Denmark

Battery energy storage systems (BESS) are getting better, according to the Energy Storage Inspection 2022 report by the University of Applied Sciences, HTW Berlin. The fifth edition of the study assessed 21 storage systems and found that while only two of the BESS studied were categorised as being efficiency class “A” in 2020, that number grew to six in 2022.