Russia

In recent years, the Baltic countries have experienced a solar generation boom as the region seeks to kill two birds with one stone. These nations aim to break away from years-long energy dependence on Russia amid growing security concerns while also continuing to prioritize the green energy transition.

While a team of Russian researchers proposed a novel approach to produce hydrogen directly in gas wells, Plug Power and CPH2 secure certification for the hydrogen systems.

A study led by Russia’s Skoltech and China’s HPSTAR suggests that rubidium and cesium additives could improve the efficiency of hydrogen batteries. Researcher Dmitrii Semenok tells pv magazine that “it is a question of changing the approach to the search for promising hydrogen storage materials.”

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.

Russia’s Hevel Solar said its new modules are based on 166 mm x 166 mm half-cut cells. They reportedly have a bifaciality factor of 90% and a temperature coefficient of -0.26% per degree Celsius.

Russian researchers have transmuted poisonous Sosnowsky’s hogweed into high-grade anode material for sodium-ion batteries. The obtained material has a Coulombic efficiency of 87%, which is on par with the best reported results for hard carbons synthesized from other raw materials.

Russian researchers have developed a heterojunction device based on a new wide-band black material called “black silicide.” The cell has averaged reflection (AVR) of 15% in the spectral range of 200 nanometers to 1,800 nm and purportedly can reach an efficiency of 10%.

Construction of the 100 MW Sputnik solar plant in Russia’s Volgograd oblast has been suspended and possibly canceled, due to Western sanctions imposed in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, according to sources.  

The Russia Renewable Energy Development Association (RREDA) said in a new report that investors are still interested in building new renewables projects in the country, despite harsh market conditions related to Western sanctions.

Scientists in Denmark have modeled the likely impacts of reduced gas supply on the European energy mix up to 2050. Their research finds that if the continent is to achieve the Paris Agreement goal of limiting global average temperature increase to 1.5 C, then gas consumption would need to be heavily reduced, anyway. In less ambitious climate scenarios, however, limited gas supplies could delay the phase-out of coal-fired electricity and lead to longer-term uncertainty over fuel and electricity prices.