Western Europe

Three Dutch political parties have brought the forced labour issue to Parliament and have asked the Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation, Sigrid Kaad, to report on the matter.

The cell reached 26.0% efficiency and showed open-circuit voltage values of up to 732 mV. It was fabricated with a back junction (BJ) design with a full-area p-n-junction at the back surface.

Vattenfall, SSAB and LKAB are building a rock cavern storage facility in a coastal city in northern Sweden. The 100-cubic-meter facility will be built 30 meters below ground and will begin storing green hydrogen next year.

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.

Having picked up GBP 5.8 million ($8 million) in a series of investments, U.K.-based Power Roll is pushing ahead with pilot production of an innovative new thin film with which it can manufacture both solar modules and capacitors. In the future, the design could also bring the potential for solar generation and energy storage within a single lightweight device.

A 1.2 MWp installation featuring more than 4,500 solar panels has sheltered a berry crop from high temperatures and damp to strengthen the claims made by agrivoltaics companies that their systems can offer climate change mitigation as well as clean energy.

A new type of carbon fibre and electrolyte matrix stunned scientists when they tested its properties. Their ‘structural’ battery could be used in electric vehicles and could even address the weight problems that bedevil devices planned for electric-powered flight.

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

Dutch research institute TNO has released a series of guidelines to reduce fire hazards in rooftop PV installations. The study follows a series of fire accidents that occurred between 2018 and 2020 in the Netherlands, for which the main causes were identified.