Western Europe

A 75 MW solar-to-hydrogen facility proposed for Bakersfield, California may mark the beginning of Fusion Fuel and Electus Energy’s green hydrogen vision for the United States.

Also on the rise: Michigan’s regulator appears friendlier to solar. Canadian Solar’s battery business inks a large supply agreement for a global investor. And more.

The listed EV company expanded its partnership with Continental to provide driver assistance, smart key and passive key access, and crash sensors.

The proposed facility will be Enel’s second global PV manufacturing facility after Catania, Sicily, and once completed will be the largest U.S. PV module manufacturing facility.

The company reports that disappointing earnings are the result of ongoing supply chain constraints affecting global shipments and order timing, indicating that it will pursue an additional price increase in 2023.

An international research group has developed new technology to measure soiling losses in PV installations, by using a simple pocket light. They said the new system offers similar performance to their reference devices.

Spanish scientists have built a cooling system featuring heat exchangers on solar panels and U-shape heat exchangers installed in a borehole at a depth of 15 meters. The researchers claim that this reduces panel temperatures by up to 17%, while improving performance by about 11%.

A Swedish team has inaugurated a pilot facility to mass produce algae material that can potentially boost silicon solar module efficiency by 4% and thin film by 36%. The algae are added to the encapsulant in silicon-based modules or to the anti-reflective coating on the glass of thin film modules. The team estimates the resulting modules would be 3.9% cheaper.

Germany’s Paxos is currently testing the solar tile in a testing facility connected to an air heat pump. The panel can provide heat and electricity at the same time, while also improving the heat pump’s coefficient of performance by around 25%.

Startup Quino Energy has raised more than $7.8 million to scale up its quinone redox flow battery technology. Harvard University and University of Cambridge researchers came up with the initial research for the battery design.