United Kingdom

HyIron says it has produced the first green hydrogen molecules at its Namibian facility, while Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP) has secured AUD 814 million ($512 million) for its Murchison Green Hydrogen project in Western Australia.

First Great British Energy project will see the state-owned renewables company roll out rooftop solar across around 200 schools and 200 National Health Service (NHS) sites in England. Monies for community energy groups and power schemes in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland included in investment package.

A research team from two London universities have developed a multi-layer device that addresses the instability of organic materials in water to further their use in direct solar hydrogen generation. Monolithic tandem anodes fabricated by the team reached a solar-to-hydrogen efficiency of 5%, a record in organic photoelectrochemical device performance. 

Scientists in the U.K. have used alumina oxide in perovskite solar cells to achieve lifetimes exceeding 1,300 h under standards-based heat and humidity testing. Their analysis showed that a reference cell based on conjugated polyelectrolytes degraded in one-tenth the time. 

The UK company says the new modules have a rated power output of 445 W and can reportedly guarantee a power yield of 95% after 10 years.

Quinbrook completes financing for Cleve Hill Solar Park in Kent, England. The solar and storage project will be the largest in the United Kingdom when it goes live later in 2025. The developer claims contract for difference, capacity market and power purchase agreements (PPAs) were critical to securing project financing.

Out of 6.9 GW of prequalified battery energy storage systems (BESS), equal to 1.9 GW derated capacity, about 1.8 GW of derated BESS secured 15-year contracts in the UK’s T-4 auction – nearly double last year’s volume. Just a week earlier, the T-1 auction also set a record for BESS procurement.

Researchers at the University of Sussex have found that widespread deployment of rooftop solar could cover the vast majority of the world’s electricity consumption, while lowering global temperatures by up to 0.13 C.

RWTH Aachen University conducted the price comparison in cooperation with Octopus Energy. The reasons are significantly different technical and regulatory requirements, but also the funding system.

Long duration energy storage (LDES) support scheme will have eight-hour minimum. First application round opens to well-established technologies, such as lithium-ion battery technology, with at least 100 MW capacity in April 2025. Flow batteries, compressed air, and liquid air likely to progress in second round, says regulator.