UK

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.

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.

A Swedish-Chinese research team has developed an organic cell said to be ideal for wide use in daily life to power internet of things-enabled devices. The cell could be used to power sensors that detect and measure moisture, particle concentrations, temperature and other parameters indoors.

The future benefits of technology such as smart meters and the associated aggregation of small scale generation are not being adequately rewarded, support for solar and wind is being cut off and parliament is fixated solely on one issue

The Munich-based chemical company has taken a substantial minority share in the British materials specialist to expand its silicon-based high-performance battery activity. The value of the transaction was not disclosed.

Researchers at the University of Warwick in the U.K. have made a discovery that could lead to new designs for organic PV devices. Their findings could open up a new range of materials for the electrode layer and bring low cost, flexible organic PV devices a step closer commercial reality, say the academics.

The inverter businesses have responded to the letter published by the UK Solar Trade Association which was critical of the former’s products and customer service record.

On August 9, a thunderstorm caused 1.5 GW of generation capacity to go offline within seconds in the U.K. The incident caused millions of households to temporarily lose power but the situation could have been considerably worse if not for the country’s battery storage reserves.

Solar PV has seen a “meteoric rise” over the past decade, with more capacity installed than any other power source, according to a new report by BloombergNEF and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

The managing director of London-based energy infrastructure company Statera has told pv magazine a clean energy grid in the U.K. will require as much flexible gas plant capacity as battery storage.

Another large scale transaction by the electricity and gas supplier has enhanced its standing in the U.K. energy market, with the business now counting more than one million customers.

The Boys & Girls Club of Manchester has transitioned to solar energy. ReVision Energy installed 408 solar panels this summer on three rooftops, at the Union Street Clubhouse (81.3 kW) in Manchester, New Hampshire, and the Pool House and Stebbins Family Hall buildings at Camp Foster in Bedford (49.3 kW).

One of Europe’s leading utility-scale solar investors has said that the continent’s subsidy-free solar market has “developed rapidly” in recent months.

London-based renewables investor Actis has raised US$1.23 billion for a new investment fund destined for existing infrastructure assets in emerging markets, starting with its own 100MW PV plant in Chile.