Denmark

While solar, wind and hydro generated 80 TWh more electricity last year than in 2019, coal and oil use fell in every EU member state, and Greek energy emissions fell almost 19%.

The bifacial device showed a power conversion efficiency of 5.2% on the front side through an n-type contact and 2.7% on the rear side through a p-type contact.

The Danish Energy Agency has granted permission, to two power-to-X specialists, for the development of innovative projects without having to comply with the country’s energy legislation. This exemption is part of an upcoming pilot scheme to support new clean energy technologies, including green hydrogen.

The €400 million, three-year scheme will guarantee price stability for developers while limiting costs to the Danish treasury and applies to on and offshore wind, wave power and hydro, as well as solar.

A Danish consortium is seeking to store electricity from large scale renewable energy plants in the form of thermal energy in big tanks containing crushed, pea-sized stones made of basalt. The first 10 MWh demonstrator is planned to be developed in Denmark and to be powered by a wind facility. Another project is also under development in the United States and is planned to be linked to a solar plant.

Two recent studies have separately shown that many scenarios assessing global decarbonization pathways are still predicting too-low future PV capacity and too-high LCOEs for the solar technology. The researchers analyzed scenarios provided by scientific researchers, government bodies and non-governmental organizations, including the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), the European Commission, the Indian government, the International Energy Agency (IEA), and the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), among others.

Danish gas transmission system operator Evida will exempt homeowners and individuals that want to abandon gas and choose renewable energy for heating from paying the grid disconnection fee. The scheme will be run on a first-come, first-served basis.

Better Energy will connect 111 MW of solar generation capacity in Jutland to the grid this year after landing a power offtake agreement from Centrica.

Denmark’s Better Energy is building the PV facility in Denmark’s southernmost region. Danish pharmaceutical company Lundbeck has agreed to buy the power generated by the plant over a seven-year period.

European renewables, including Spanish solar, made big gains as energy demand recovered before the second wave of Covid infections. Nuclear was a notable loser, in part because clean energy volumes in the north of the continent drove down power prices sufficiently to make reactors uncompetitive.