What do Ireland, Germany, Poland and Spain all have in common? Well, like the other members of the European Union they all have a requirement to decarbonise and a desire for sustainable economic growth. Andy Colthorpe speaks with energy storage associations from those four countries to hear about their unique situations as well as the opportunities and challenges they share.
Battery storage is flexible, remarkable — and investable — but you need to know what you’re doing and know where the market opportunities and limits lie. Renewable and clean energy financier Laurent Segalen from Megawatt-X explains some of the things he’s seen as batteries have become an infrastructure asset in their own right.
Battery storage deployments, both with and without solar, have been in a new growth phase that has smashed quarterly records consistently while costs have continued to fall. Nonetheless, the maturity of the industry is not always reflected in the information available to financial decision-makers, writes Adam Walters from Stoel Rives LLP.
As special purpose acquisition companies, or SPACs, prove a popular route to public markets for private energy businesses in the US, Fieldfisher’s Jack Mason-Jebb and Brad Isaac consider whether the trend has enough momentum to take it across the Atlantic.
The broader decarbonisation agenda is driving interest from businesses in procuring renewable power, and now a whole host of solutions and market structures are coming forward to accommodate them. Edith Hancock explores the maturation of corporate power purchase agreements.
Stephan Schindele, head of product management Agri-PV at BayWa r.e. Solar Projects, explores the mutual benefits of ‘Agri-PV’ to both solar farm operators and farmers alike, and reveals what is needed to take the sub-sector forward.
With extreme weather events becoming increasingly common, Molly Lempriere takes a look at how to ensure a solar installation is prepared to manage wind, hail, heat and anything else nature has in store.
With South Africa faced with ongoing power cuts, Jules Scully explores the how solar PV can help decarbonise the country’s coal-heavy grid while providing energy security.
Perovskite solar cells have become the focal point of many university-led studies in the past year. In the first of a new series of article on PV Tech profiling some of the leading cutting-edge solar technologies, Edith Hancock explores what is being done to remove bottlenecks to the growth of perovskites.
In the second part of a two-part feature on the solar industry’s response to polysilicon price increases, Carrie Xiao hears from industry leaders about the importance of technology innovation, efforts to reduce waste and the need to avoid cutting prices blindly just to appease customers.
