Finland

UK-based researchers have developed a novel method to estimate the amount of defrost cycles a heat pump will experience in the winter and how much energy it would require to implement the cycles. The results of their simulation showed a strong relationship between the number of defrost cycles and the ambient temperature.

A Finnish-Norwegian research group has investigated model chains for horizontal-to-vertical solar irradiance conversion in east-west oriented vertical PV systems located at high latitudes. They have found that accuracy and bias of the model chains are different for the east and west sides of solar array.

Italian energy group Enel says it is scrapping its plans to build a hydrogen project in La Spezia, Italy, despite €13.72 million ($14.7 million) in European subsidies, while Toyota has introduced its new Crown Sedan fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEV) in Japan.

The new SolarSTEPS forecasting method improves ensemble forecast quality by 9.3% compared to approaches that consider only cloud advective motion.

A Finnish-German research group has developed a 6 × 6 mm low bandgap GaAsNBi solar cell with an active area of 0.25 cm2. The device has an energy bandgap of 0.86 eV and is reportedly suitable for applications in multi-junction solar cells.

Scientists in Finland have developed a new method of assessing the long-term performance of vertical bifacial PV systems in Nordic conditions. The experimental setup consisted of a east-west oriented vertical array equipped with power, temperature, and plane-of-array irradiance sensors, wind speed and global horizontal irradiance sensors, and a weather station.

India and Saudi Arabia have agreed to develop electrical interconnections and low-carbon hydrogen, while Masdar has partnered with Boeing ion the sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) industry.

The first tender under the European Union’s new €40 million ($41.8 million) multilateral solar scheme – targeting 5 MW to 100 MW projects based in Finland and providing energy to Luxembourg – has been ‘oversubscribed’ with bids ‘significantly exceeding target volumes’, the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Energy recently announced.

Swedish solar developer Alight says it will enter the Finnish PV market for the first time early next year with a 100 MW ground-mounted solar park in Eurajoki. Alight COO Warren Campbell tells pv magazine that the array will be a ‘big project by Finnish standards.’

A British research group has aggregated information from seven field studies on heat pumps from around the world and has found air-source devices have an average coefficient of performance (COP) of 2.74 when temperatures are above −10 C. Below that, COP is between 1.5 and 2.