Europe

The International Energy Agency has published a 10-point plan for Europe to reduce its reliance on natural gas imported from Russia. The plan would see Russian gas imports to EU member states reduced by one third within a year, and notes that further reductions within this timeframe would come with significant tradeoffs, likely to impact both energy prices and Europe’s Green Deal. The plan was presented by Fatih Birol, executive director of the IEA, in a virtual press conference held earlier today.

Developed by Germany-based hydrogen specialist Enapter, the EL 4.0 electrolyzer is based on a patented anion exchange membrane (AEM) technology. Commercial production is currently being prepared at the company’s Italian plant and the first shipments should be made in the summer.

The stadium of German football club SC Freiburg will host a 2.4MW rooftop solar array that will be built with heterojunction modules provided by Swiss manufacturer Meyer Burger.

The Department of Science & Technology, Government of India, and the Innovation Fund Denmark (IFD) have collaborated to fund Indian and Danish researchers on the joint development of green fuels including green hydrogen. 

Norway’s Scatec, which has a 50% stake in Acme’s 900 MW solar project in Rajasthan, cited a lack of domestic solar panel supply and the 40% import duty on solar panels effective from April as the reasons for putting the PV project on hold.

Larsen & Toubro (L&T), an Indian multinational EPC contractor, has partnered with Norway’s HydrogenPro to set up a joint venture in India for gigawatt-scale manufacturing of alkaline water electrolyzers. 

Exide Leclanche Energy Private Limited, the joint venture with Swiss energy storage specialist Leclanché, has a lithium battery pack and module assembly factory in Gujarat.

The Fluence and ReNew Power joint venture will serve a diversified customer base in India by localizing and integrating Fluence’s energy storage products and packages for the local market. ReNew will become its first customer by procuring a 150 MWh battery-based energy storage system for its 300 MW peak power project in Karnataka.

A British-Indian research group has developed an active cooling technique that is claimed to improve a PV system’s yield by around 0.5%. The system could be used in residential solar arrays and the water heated by the PV modules may be fed into a solar water heating system.

The Swiss PV diagnostics and predictive solutions provider has appointed Neeraj Dasila as chief technology officer (CTO), and Shankaransh Srivastava as vice president-marketing.