Magazine Archive 07/08 - 2023 | Beyond solar

The typical volume of excess clean power wasted daily on the island has rocketed since last year. With a fossil fuel industry veteran heading the energy department after February’s presidential election, what prospect is there of a green transition?

The solar industry sat up and took notice when Portugal held two record-breaking national PV auctions in 2019 and 2020, setting new global low prices for solar energy. However, sluggish progress on those much-heralded projects is now weighing on the nation’s clean energy ambitions.

Donations of cash and solar equipment have thrown a lifeline to schools, hospitals, and communities in Ukraine but the country needs much more, including long-term backing for the recovery of its industry, reports Ian Skarytovsky.

The Ukrainian solar industry had hoped that a long-anticipated counter-offensive against the Russians would help reclaim PV assets on the eastern bank of the Dnipro River. The brutal reality is that the destruction of the Kakhovka dam has likely severely damaged solar plants in the affected territories, reports Ian Skarytovsky.

As solar and renewable energy grow, our industry finds itself coming more frequently into contact with people from radically different industries and walks of life. Occasionally these crossovers have led to conflict but, for the most part, solar is expanding decarbonization and energy access. In turn, the new interactions result in innovations and insights that feed back into the PV and energy storage industries.

Developers have deployed vast amounts of solar capacity in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais in recent years. Winning community approval for large-scale solar has been a challenge in some places but many Brazilians have welcomed the solar opportunity, reports Priscila Brandão, a journalist who traveled to the towns of Pirapora, Várzea da Palma, and Quem-Quem, in Minas Gerais, to capture their stories.

Sometimes it takes an outsider, someone with fresh eyes, to see the true state of play. Agata Krawiec-Rokita feels the solar sector lacks transparency, making sales processes overly complex amid both shortages and oversupply. She set out to build a pan-European platform to facilitate transactions for buyers and sellers.

The start of July 2023 saw the establishment in Germany of the Helmholtz Institute for Polymers in Energy Applications (HIPOLE), a collaboration between Friedrich Schiller University Jena and Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin (HZB) that will apply expertise in polymer science to various energy-related applications, with a strong focus on developing sustainable, recyclable polymer materials. pv magazine met with Ulrich S. Schubert, founding director of HIPOLE, to discuss the new institute’s work and the many exciting crossovers between the fields of polymer science and renewable energy.

Cutting emissions and making use of renewable power represent a big departure from the way things have long been done in heavy industries such as steel manufacturing. In Sweden, the Hybrit initiative is taking the lead in developing a green steel industry, making use of the country’s high share of renewable energy, and partner SSAB expects to deliver fossil-fuel-free steel to market by 2026. pv magazine spoke with two of the project’s partners: Martin Pei, executive vice president and chief technology officer at steel producer SSAB, and Mikael Nordlander, director for industry decarbonization at energy producer Vattenfall, about the project and the steel industry’s growing ties to renewable energy.

The promise of an unencumbered life drew retiree John Robert away from landlocked Minneapolis, Minnesota, and to a life aboard his sailboat. While docked for a period of repair and renovation, pv magazine caught up with him to learn about the ways in which onboard solar is allowing him to live life where the wind takes him.