Energy Storage

In May, oil giant Shell invested in German manufacturer Sonnen. Now the 112-year-old company wants to fully acquire the business, subject to Germany’s monopoly authorities. Sonnen said it hopes the deal will accelerate its growth by expanding its market reach and capacity.

Given its ambitious goal of achieving 175 GW of renewable power generation capacity by 2022 – and push for electric mobility – the world’s second most populous nation presents a potentially huge investment opportunity.

A Dutch start-up has designed an electric vehicle that runs solely on solar energy, and aims to deliver its first models next year. The car will also be available to lease.

The Energy Storage Europe conference and trade show is nearing and pv magazine is featuring the top ten developments in the field as our Energy Storage Highlights, selected by an independent jury of experts. We kick off with Proton Motor’s contribution to a Swiss project that enables apartment tenants to live without a gas or electricity grid connection.

The 10 MW system at Tata Power Delhi Distribution’s Rohini substation is said to be South Asia’s largest.

Former NREL employee pens paper to rebut claims conventional energy can supply the essential grid services needed to return to normality after network disruption. The author says claims renewable energy cannot provide such services are erroneous.

The €150 million project is entering the approval phase. Using the new facility, expected by 2023, the two companies will test how electricity from renewable energy can be converted into green hydrogen and green methane via electrolysis.

The service, costing €2 per month, is for residential customers that use PV products provided by the power company. The system is provided by E.ON group – a shareholder in the Slovak utility – and has already been launched in Germany, Czechia and Italy.

The Australian Renewable Energy Agency has awarded AU$9.6 million in grants for five projects and seven studies into the role of distributed generation assets on the grid – and how to expand their penetration.

The opportunities for power-to-gas have long interested the solar community, but large-scale projects have been exceptionally rare. The outgoing CEO of SolarPower Europe, James Watson, has presided over a transformative period at the organization, and departed in January to head up Eurogas – right at the point the region’s solar sector is set for revival. Advancing a power-to-gas agenda, Watson tells pv magazine editor in chief Jonathan Gifford, will be a big part of his new challenge.