March 2022

Australia-based mining giant Fortescue has started the development of an electric train that recharges itself using gravity, after settling its recent purchase of UK-based Williams Advanced Engineering.

US coal company Peabody Energy has launched a joint venture with Riverstone Credit Partners and Summit Partners Credit Advisors to develop more than 3.3GW of solar and 1.6GW of battery storage capacity over the next five years.

The International Energy Agency today 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.

A UK consortium is developing an organic flow battery technology that could be used in ports to supply power to visiting vessels and in-port assets such as cranes and port vehicles. The electro-chemistry for the batteries is being supplied by German battery manufacturer CMBlu, which developed a flow battery relying on high-performance energy storage molecules that are entirely organic.

Researchers in Saudi Arabia have fabricated an integrated fully PV-powered system to extract fresh water from the atmosphere. The system uses excess heat from the solar modules to evaporate and condense water that can then be used to grow crops. Part of the water is also used to cool down the solar modules through an active cooling technique.

The Emerge operation established by the two companies operates on-site solar panels for companies in the UAE and Saudi Arabia.

Sumitomo, Sunseap and Shikoku Electric are partnering to offer bilateral PPAs to big power consumers in Japan. The consortium will operate through a dedicated joint venture and will offer three different PPA options.

The US Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory has made a third semi-exclusive commercial license for vanadium redox flow battery technologies, in order to help bring the technology to market.

Built by Korean oil provider SK Energy and the Seoul Metropolitan Government, the “Energy Super Station” is equipped with 20kW of solar panels and 300kW of fuel cell stacks. It can refuel conventional combustion vehicles as well as electric vehicles and fuel cell cars.

The 22 nations which have had their “recovery and resilience” spending plans approved by the European Commission are set to devote billions to clean energy facilities, with the cash set to be disbursed in three payments to the end of next year.