Europe

Tumbling solar costs have spurred Google on to a dramatic boost of its exposure to the technology, acting to line up supply from projects worldwide as part of a major clean energy push.

The solar surge expected to hit Europe in the coming decades could extend to one of the continent’s northernmost countries, new official stats indicate.

London-based markus kayser, a masters candidate in design products at the royal college of art, converts the raw resources of sunlight and sand into glass products with his fully automated, solar-powered ‘solar sinter‘ 3D printer.

A research team led by the University of Liverpool has developed a transparent conductive oxide material to replace tin with molybdenum. The results demonstrated better performance and potentially lower material costs than the transparent conducting layers used in today’s commercial solar cells.

The energy regulator has set a 15-year payment of $0.10/kWh for PV projects with a generation capacity of 10 kW-1 MW. The first auctions for large renewables projects are planned for early next year and will grant a fixed rate rather than a variable premium.

This week pv magazine was in Amsterdam for the sixth edition of the BifiPV workshop, where the discussion focused on the impressive achievements made by bifacial solar modules and the challenges the technology faces as it moves toward mainstream adoption.

With the region of Styria considering making PV mandatory on all new buildings, the nation’s Climate Fund will support PV and storage projects in agriculture and forestry. Applications can be submitted by November 2020 – or until the pot is empty.

UK solar developer Solarcentury and Dutch counterpart PowerField have unveiled plans to build the “largest” solar project in the Netherlands on behalf of Impax, the British asset manager that owns the site.

Energy companies are lacking any kind of certainty over Brexit and how it will affect the sector, but cannot allow it to have any impact on the “fundamental issue” of climate change and the energy transition, some of Europe’s leading utilities have said.

Politicians’ failure to form government pacts condemns Spain’s clean energy shift to further delays and uncertainty, the industry has warned as the country heads to fresh polls.

Enel Green Power has switched on a utility-scale solar project it developed in Spain’s southeast with support from the country’s renewable auction of 2017.

AleaSoft analyses fuel market prices, carbon emission rights, European electricity markets and renewable energy production. Last week most prices rose on the previous reporting period as solar and wind power production varied by country.

The €7.5 million project, built by Dutch energy provider Eneco, is intended to power operations at the Ghent factory of the Indian steel manufacturer. Arcelor’s employees were invited to participate through crowdfunding.

The La Poste Group wants one or more green corporate PPAs, to be procured through a tender. The postal service wants to hedge against volatile energy prices.

The Polish parliament has adopted new environmental provisions which also include a tax reduction for micro PV. The measure comes on top of the Mój Prąd rebate scheme for residential rooftop projects ranging in size from 2 kW to 10 kW which was launched in July.