The two new centres are a Renewable Energy Forecast Centre and a Demand Response Control Centre, both situated within EGAT’s headquarters in Nonthaburi, close to Bangkok.

They also are intended as prototypes for regional centres at the five regional grid control centres, while a further eleven renewable energy forecast centres are being planned at EGAT substations in areas with potential for renewable energy development.

“The centres will support the additional 8,000MW renewable energy integrated into the generation mix as well as renewable energy power plants of very small power producers, which may impact the control and stability of the country’s power system,” commented Kitti Petchsantad, Deputy Governor – Transmission System at EGAT.

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The implementation of the centres forms two key pillars of Thailand’s smart grid development in the period 2022-2031.

The Renewable Energy Forecast Centre is directed at predicting electricity generation from renewable and clean energy, including wind and solar energy operated by small power producers.

The forecasts are then incorporated with the plan for electricity generation of other fuel-based power plants to ensure that the power system can handle fluctuations and uncertainties of electricity generated from renewable energy.

The Demand Response Control Centre serves as the control centre for reducing electricity consumption via a load aggregator, which manages the demand response of large power users.

Currently, the Centre is being operated in the pilot phase with a reduced load of 50MW and with the Metropolitan Electricity Authority and the Provincial Electricity Authority serving as the load aggregators.

In the future when the load aggregator role is open to private agencies, the new energy business will emerge with all aggregators operating under the Centre.

In other activities in Thailand, EGAT has opened in Mae Hong Son Province, where a smart grid pilot is underway, a new public centre to enable locals and visitors to learn more about the energy system and smart grids.

The pilot has included the implementation of a grid-connected solar PV and battery energy storage system among other technologies.

Nanotechnology, generally regarded as technologies at the atomic and molecular scales of size less than 100nm (1nm corresponding to a billionth of a metre), is a fast-growing area with the potential to impact many areas of activity.

One such is energy storage in which nanoscale innovations have already led to improvements, including the creation of advanced batteries with higher energy density and faster charging.

For example, California-based Sila Nanotechnologies has developed nanotechnology-based lithium-ion batteries with up to 20% capacity enhancement with the potential that can offer, for example to the improved range of electric vehicles or for use of wearable devices.

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Likewise nanotechnology has also boosted solar cell efficiency by incorporating nanoscale structures like quantum dots and perovskite materials, the white paper points out – the technology also gives rise to hybrid solar cells that both generate and store energy simultaneously.

Nanoscale supercapacitors offer high power density and rapid energy discharge, ideal for energy storage applications.

Quoting a projected market size for energy storage and conversion of $17 billion by 2028, the white paper states that despite the existing hurdles, the market is on a growth trajectory.

Investments and startups that revolve around nanotechnology for energy storage and conversion, in addition to prominent academic institutions like the US Department of Energy (DOE), Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST) and universities worldwide, understand the importance of crafting new materials for sustainable energy applications.

Nanomaterials possess the potential to greatly enhance ion transportation and electron conductivity, which could be the solution to advancing this field.

The white paper notes, however, some barriers to entry in the field. Among these are the exorbitant expenditure for research and development and a lengthy development process, while also there are regulatory obstacles that can complicate market penetration.

The white paper concludes that with continuous research and collaboration, nanotechnology will persist in driving innovation and serve as an essential tool for pioneers in the field of energy storage and conversion, empowering them to break new ground in sustainable energy.

The human factor, when it comes to the use of distributed generation such as rooftop solar and its delivery to the grid is one of the biggest challenges when it comes to the modern grid.

Zhao, who directs Mines’ Smart Grid and Energy Research Lab, intends to study this human factor and this in turn could be incorporated so that the grid could predict how it will then be used by the humans.

Zhao says that while there is a great deal of effort underway right now to build the technology and infrastructure needed to run smart grids, the one thing missing from current research is the human factor.

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“The most important part of the equation is people, and we are trying to understand human behaviour to help build the most robust and fully functional smart grid models.”

The grant from the National Science Foundation is worth almost $200,000 over the next two years.

Specifically the intention is to introduce a data-driven approach to analyse and explicitly model power demand behaviour at the household level using real-world long-term data.

The goal is to reveal macro- and micro-residential power demand patterns, through matching 15-minute resolution smart meter data with consumer surveys, along with local parcel data and meteorological data, to achieve a comprehensive understanding of residential power demand behaviour at a disaggregated level.

This should then lay the foundation for research focused on data-driven analysis and modelling for next-generation power grids.

The primary contribution of the project is intended to be the development of a data-driven temperature-time-day-based model for residential power demand behaviour, relying solely on real-world data.

Zhao anticipates that the research also should have wider impacts, with the proposed model potentially readily expanded to other domains such as water usage.

It also should contribute to better understanding incentive effectiveness in changing consumer behaviour, particularly in green consumption.

Alongside the project a new ‘Smart Grid and Data Science’ curriculum will be developed, combining power engineering and social science.

Partners in the project include the local coop West River Electric Association and the chamber of commerce Elevate Rapid City.

Smoke impact on solar PV

The new project comes as Zhao has just completed another study on the impact of wildfire smoke on solar PV.

While solar energy production is likely to be impacted by low-level smoke, the project found that the output of individual solar panels can be reduced by nearly 50%, even when the smoke is present at high altitudes and air quality near the ground is not significantly impacted.

Moreover, the fluctuations vary with the intensity of the smoke, which often varies, indicating the importance of taking this into account as solar becomes more widespread in wildfire-prone areas and beyond given the propensity for the smoke to potentially travel large distances in the air.

The V2G self-consumption station is operational within Qilian Mountain National Park’s long-term national research base, providing continuous support for ecological patrols and clean, low-carbon energy utilisation within the park.

According to NIO in a press release, the system marks the first global photovoltaic self-consumption system with V2G (vehicle to grid), composed of photovoltaic power stations, bidirectional V2G charging piles and all-electric vehicles.

V2G systems allow EVs to serve as distributed mobile energy units, charging during low-demand periods and supplying power during peak times.

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The technology, through the deployment of source-network-storage-load, states NIO, achieves local self-production and self-marketing of green energy and minimises the impact on the external environment.

V2G bidirectional charging piles offer EV charging services; with the reverse discharge function, surplus vehicle-stored energy is supplied back to the grid for nighttime or emergency use within the park.

Photovoltaic power energises the system, with an annual average output of about 690,000kWh, fully covering the EV energy consumption within the park.

Surplus energy can cater to over 50% of other power needs, resulting in an estimated annual carbon reduction of around 55 tonnes.

Clean Parks initiative

NIO and WWF previously collaborated together to support the ecological construction of Northeast China Tiger and Leopard National Park, as well as Giant Panda National Park, and became strategic partners of the Clean Parks ecological co-conservation plan in April 2022.

The V2G announcement marks the commencement of the third phase of the Clean Parks and WWF ecological co-conservation programme.

The self-consumption facilities were established by Clean Parks in collaboration with NIO, Astronergy and One Earth Nature Foundation in Qilian Mountain National Park, China, on the eve of the Second National Park Forum, under the coordination of the Qinghai Forestry and Grassland Bureau and the WWF.

Acoustic spalling – key to cheaper solar PV?

III-V solar cells grown out of periodic table groups III and V alloys such as gallium arsenide (GaAs) are the most efficient but also costly, which has limited their use to applications such as powering satellites in space.

But that may be about to change, according to US DOE National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) researchers, who say that the application of sound waves in a new process called ‘acoustic spalling’ holds the potential for significantly reducing their manufacturing costs.

The key is the ability to repeatedly reuse the substrate upon which the cells are grown. Whereas existing technology uses a sacrificial etch layer, which allows a cell to be lifted off a GaAs substrate so that the substrate can be used again, the process is time consuming and leaves behind a residue that requires an expensive polishing step.

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In contrast, spalling, which uses sound waves to control the fracture, takes seconds, with the fracture within the substrate nearly parallel to its surface and allowing the cell to be easily removed, revealing a new, contaminant-free surface from within the substrate that does not require polishing.

“This is super promising for the substrate reuse,” said Kevin Schulte, a scientist in NREL’s High-Efficiency Crystalline PV group and lead author of the study.

“This alone will not make III-V solar cells cost-effective, but as part of this portfolio of research, we’re trying address cost from multiple different angles.”

The researchers were able to make a cell on a previously spalled substrate with an NREL-certified efficiency of 26.9% – similar to that from a new substrate.

However, additional research is needed to determine how many times the substrate can be reused after being subjected to acoustic spalling.

Quantum computing to advance fuel cells for e-mobility

Fuel cells are an emerging option for future mobility, with their competitiveness dependent on improving performance and reducing costs.

This in turn depends on a deeper understanding of the chemical processes involved but modelling is complex and challenging. Moreover, with the quantum properties of the chemical mechanisms involved, they are a good candidate for quantum computers – which is why the BMW Group and Airbus have teamed up with quantum technology company Quantinuum.

The three companies have now developed a hybrid quantum-classical workflow to speed up such research using quantum computers and have reported successfully modelling the oxygen reduction reaction, which converts hydrogen and oxygen into water and electricity in a fuel cell. It is relatively slow and requires a large amount of platinum catalyst, so there is great interest and value in better understanding the underlying mechanisms involved in the reaction.

Dr Peter Lehnert, vice-president, Research Technologies at BMW Group, says that circularity and sustainable mobility are putting us on the quest for new materials to create more efficient products and shape the future user experience.

“Being able to simulate material properties to relevant chemical accuracy with the benefits from the accelerating quantum computing hardware is giving us just the right tools for more speed in innovation for this decisive domain.”

The companies intend to investigate various industrial challenges and believe the approach could have wide ranging benefits, such as for metal-air batteries among others.

Toyota adapts fuel cell vehicle tech for the Moon

Toyota is working on a project to provide its regenerative fuel cell technology, evolved from that developed for its road vehicles, to power a pressurised lunar rover, nicknamed the ‘Lunar cruiser’.

A regenerative fuel cell is a system that provides both power and storage. During the day, powered by solar PV, the system would produce hydrogen and oxygen and then at night, this would be converted to provide power and water.

The system is considered ideal for lunar applications, drawing on local water ice resources but also enabling operations to continue during the long, 14-day lunar night.

Toyota is partnering on the initiative with Mitsubishi, which is working on the Lupex (lunar polar exploration) concept for an earlier phase rover to investigate inter alia the availability of usable water resources on the Moon.

Both initiatives are being undertaken for the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), which is contributing to NASA’s Artemis mission and is expected to supply the Lunar Cruiser for a 2029 launch date.

The Lunar Cruiser is being developed to normally carry a crew of two – four in a contingency or unmanned – and to have a life span of 10 years and a travel distance of 10,000km, with an off-road driving performance aimed to meet the varied environments on the Moon, including regolith and rocks and craters with their varying slopes.

Energy metaverse – the building blocks securely in place

The metaverse may seem very conceptual to many at this stage but it is coming in the energy sector – and coming big, according to a new report from Guidehouse Insights, which estimates that over the next decade global investment in core technologies will grow from just over $6 billion in 2022 to nearly $80 billion in 2031 – a compound annual growth rate of no less than 33%.

Core energy metaverse technologies include digital twins, AI and machine learning, unmanned aerial systems and drones, extended reality and blockchain-based applications.

“When the energy metaverse is fully realised – admittedly more than a decade away – utilities and O&G concerns can envision a day when employee onboarding and training take place via XR in a metaverse-based training centre,” says Richelle Elberg, principal research analyst with Guidehouse Insights.

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“Much like it was difficult in the early 1990s to imagine all the ways a smartphone or the internet would change how business is conducted, in 2023 it can be hard to see just how radically metaverse technology stands to change the operating dynamics of energy industry verticals.”

Potential examples cited by Guidehouse include utility storefronts in metaverse malls that could provide virtual customers with real-world benefits such as product comparisons and purchasing, energy use analysis and evaluation of a premises’ suitability for solar.

In-demand specialised experts in a field could work on a virtual offshore rig, advising onsite workers how to address a problem. And drones could conduct ongoing inspections of critical assets, feeding real-time data into digital twins equipped with advanced AI to predict and prevent wildfires or methane emissions.

Flexible solar panels coming to market

Solar panels only a few millimetres thick that are claimed integrable on all kinds of surfaces are about to become available from the Belgian startup EnFoil (derived from ‘Energy enabling foil’).

The panels, which are based on copper-indium-gallium-selenium technology, are the outcome of years of research by the Hasselt University and microelectronics research organisation imec within the Energyville collaboration, with EnFoil a spin-off from the two organisations.

Potential applications range from buildings to tents and swimming pool covers, with what is said a pliable but robust format manufacturable in all shapes and sizes and offering greater flexibility than the current mostly flat and predetermined size formats.

“As a result, the technology was mainly limited to exclusive construction projects or as an expensive extra option for the roof of your car. With Enfoil, we are changing this,” says Marc Meuris, CTO.

He adds that talks with industry to bring EnFoil’s solar films to market are “in full swing”, with the current focus mainly on the logistics sector, where the proposal is to integrate the materials on the roofs and sidewalls of trucks to power their sensors and track and trace systems.

An edible rechargeable battery

Children’s toys, gastrointestinal tract disease diagnosis and treatment and food quality monitoring are considered some potential areas where edible electronics would be of interest.

As a step towards this researchers at the Italian Institute of Technology have created a first totally edible and rechargeable battery.

With inspiration from the biochemical redox reactions that happen in the body and materials consumed as part of the daily diet, the battery utilises riboflavin or vitamin B2 as anode and the plant pigment quercetin as cathode, along with activated charcoal to increase the electrical conductivity and a water-based electrolyte.

The separator was made from nori seaweed, the kind found in sushi.

Then, electrodes were encapsulated in beeswax from which two food-grade gold contacts – the foil used by pastry chefs – on a cellulose derived support come out.

The battery cell operates at 0.65V, a voltage low enough not to create problems in the human body when ingested, and can provide current of 48μA for 12 minutes or a few microamps for more than an hour – enough to supply power to small electronic devices, such as low power LEDs, for a limited time.

Ivan Ilic, who co-authored the study, said the edible battery is also very interesting for the energy storage community.

“Building safer batteries, without usage of toxic materials, is a challenge we face as battery demand soars. While our edible batteries won’t power electric cars, they are a proof that batteries can be made from safer materials than current Li-ion batteries. We believe they will inspire other scientists to build safer batteries for a truly sustainable future.”

The current flexibility requirements in the EU correspond to 11% of the total electricity demand but the study indicates the need for growth to 24% in 2030 and 30% by 2050 in order to balance supply and demand with the increasing levels of variable renewable energies to meet the region’s ambitions.

In absolute terms the average requirements for the EU resulting from the modelling for 2030 are 0.79TWh/day, 4.93TWh/week and 14.39TWh/month respectively for the daily, weekly and monthly flexibility requirements.

For 2050, these numbers increase to respectively 2.52TWh/day, 14.6TWh/week and 41.68TWh/month. Summed across all timescales, this corresponds to 2,189TWh – approximately 30% of the estimated 7,300TWh 2050 demand and about 80% of the current (2020) demand of around 2,750TWh.

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The report states that the study has indicated evidence for significant correlations between the daily flexibility requirements and the share of solar PV production on the one hand and between the weekly and monthly flexibility requirements and the share of wind production on the other.

While electricity generated from solar PV plants typically follows a specific daily generation profile, wind production profiles more tend to follow the monthly seasonality. Efficiently integrating both sources of renewable energy sources in the power system thus requires an adequate evaluation of both short-term and long-term flexibility solutions.

Flexibility technologies

In terms of technologies offering flexibility solutions, the study finds that interconnections play a dominant role in addressing the flexibility needs in 2030 on all timescales but particularly on the longer-term timescales.

Storage solutions like batteries, electrolysers and pumped hydro also play a significant role, with the former almost exclusively targeting daily flexibility needs but the latter also targeting long-term flexibility needs.

Demand response from households and industry will also play a role in the flexibility mix and thermal units, of which production can be dispatched, also remain an important contributing factor.

This shows that to address the flexibility needs in the future a combination of technologies is required, including new storage solutions as well as more conventional assets.

Regarding storage specifically, the study suggests that compared to other technologies, it would only be able to recover a modest fraction of capital expenditure from market revenues gained on the spot market by 2030, and would thus exhibit a strong reliance on income streams from other market segments or further sorts of economic incentives.

Looking towards 2030, a relatively limited increase of storage capacity is projected, with additional capacity requested mainly when member states experience congested interconnector capacity over considerable periods of time.

If this interconnector capacity were lower than the current targets, lithium-ion batteries would be a key source of flexibility by balancing short-term system deviations. Further interconnection constraints would increase the importance of longer-duration batteries.

Lunar power satellite conceived

With the European Space Agency’s Solaris initiative to develop space-based solar power for transmission to Earth just getting underway, the organisation also is starting to investigate the potential for space-based solar to deliver power to the Moon.

With support from ESA’s innovation programme, the Swiss startup Astrostrom has developed a design concept of a ‘Greater Earth Lunar Power Station’ that could be constructed on the Moon mainly from resources there and that could deliver microwave power down to receivers on the lunar surface, for example for powering a base there.

The design features V-shaped Moon-produced iron pyrite crystal-based solar panels with integrated antennas, deployed in a helix configuration extending more than a square kilometre end to end and yielding an estimated continuous 23MW of energy for lunar surface operations.

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The station, located at a determined point around 61,350 km from the lunar surface, would also be inhabited, serving both as a gateway between Earth and Moon operations with artificial gravity for adaptive health purposes, as well as potentially an attractive tourist destination.

The concept could equally be adapted for the development of Earth facing solar power satellites.

Launching large numbers of gigawatt-scale solar power satellites into orbit from the surface of the Earth could run into the problem of a lack of launch capacity and a lunar-made solar power satellite would require around five times less velocity change to place into geostationary Earth orbit compared to satellites launched from Earth itself.

According to the study the power station could be achieved without requiring any technological breakthroughs, with most of the core technologies for lunar surface mining, beneficiation and fabrication operations already in use or under development on Earth today.

Moreover – and despite the substantial engineering development required – the solar power satellites produced on the Moon would not only be cheaper than any comparable Earth-developed solar power satellite, but the electricity they generated for Earth would also be cost-competitive with any terrestrial power alternative.

Harvesting electricity from air

If new research from the University of Massachusetts Amherst is anything to go by, almost any material could be turned into a device that continuously harvests electricity from humidity in the air.

The secret, according to the researchers, lies in being able to pepper the material with nanopores, or small holes, less than 100nm in diameter – less than a thousandth of the width of a human hair.

This number corresponds to the ‘mean free path’ of water molecules when suspended in air. An energy harvester made from a thin layer of material filled with nanopores smaller than 100nm would let water molecules pass from the upper to the lower part of the material, but as the pores are so small, the water molecules would easily bump into the pore’s edge as they pass through the thin layer.

This means that the upper part of the layer would be bombarded with many more charge-carrying water molecules than the lower part, creating a charge imbalance, thereby effectually create a battery and one that runs as long as there is any humidity in the air.

“Think of a cloud, which is nothing more than a mass of water,” says Jun Yao, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering in the College of Engineering at UMass Amherst, and the work’s senior author.

“Each of those droplets contains a charge, and when conditions are right, the cloud can produce a lightning bolt – but we don’t know how to reliably capture electricity from lightning. What we’ve done is to create a human-built, small-scale cloud that produces electricity for us predictably and continuously so that we can harvest it.”

Since humidity is ever present, a harvester should be able to run 24/7, rain or shine, day or night and whether or not the wind blows.

Moreover, as the thickness is so tiny, many thousands could be stacked to create a device capable of delivering kilowatt-level power.

Solar PV for agriculture

With the need to install renewables in different locations, French solar energy developer TSE has come up with the concept of PV canopies for installation in agricultural settings.

In 2022, the company installed its first agrovoltaics pilot site of 3ha in north central France, comprised of a PV shading system with a capacity of 2.4MWp – equivalent to the power consumption of a community of 1,350 inhabitants – over large-scale crops of soya, wheat, forage rye, winter barley and rapeseed.

The project came into being because of production limitations on the farm after suffering from hot and arid summers for more than a decade.

The agricultural canopy is composed of a large shading structure equipped with solar panels with tracker systems fixed on cables 5m above the fields. A supervision system controls the orientation of the panels, depending on the weather conditions and to completely automate the acquisition of operational data.

With the rotating shades, the system is able to mitigate climatic conditions in the summer season by lowering the temperature under the shade.

The pilot is a 9-year demonstrator and three similar projects are reported under construction along with a further 12 in the development phase.

Iberdrola is to build what it says will be the largest solar PV plant for on-site self-consumption in Europe.

It has won planning consent to begin construction of the project which is the basis of a long-term renewable energy power purchase agreement with chemicals company SABIC.

Iberdrola will supply electricity from the plant for the next 25 years to SABIC’s industrial complex based in La Aljorra, Cartagena.

The 100MW plant, which will comprise more than 260,000 solar modules will be located on land owned by SABIC, will require an investment of more than €60 million and commissioning is expected for 2024.

Raquel Blanco, Iberdrola’s Director of Global Customers and PPAs, said “this is a very important milestone for the development of a unique self-consumption facility from which to supply renewable energy in the long term”.

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Blanco stressed that PPAs “have proven to be a great tool for customers to secure long-term, sustainable renewable energy while gaining greater certainty in the performance of our energy assets, thus contributing to the growth of renewable energy”.

“And this is just the beginning as we continue to work together with SABIC to implement additional solutions to achieve full decarbonisation globally”.

Bob Maughon of SABIC said the company “is delighted to see the final permits granted to build the Cartagena solar plant, which will bring SABIC one step closer to having the world’s first plant of this size operating 100% on renewable energy”.

“This is an important milestone in SABIC’s journey to transition all global operations to clean energy by 2050, while continuing on our roadmap to carbon neutrality”.

Iberdrola said the construction of the PV plant will have “an important regional component as it will employ civil works companies, labour, transporters, suppliers of raw materials, cranes etc, as well as the promotion of industrial suppliers from the Region of Murcia in southeastern Spain.

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Novel water leak detection

By 2030 Britain’s water industry is required to reduce leakage by 1 billion l/day to ensure future water supplies, which in turn requires a step change in innovation in current leak detection tools.

Two new projects are set to tackle this issue with funding from Britain’s water regulator Ofwat’s innovation ‘Water Breakthrough Challenge’ fund.

Severn Trent Water is leading an initiative to use fibre optic cables adjacent to water mains as leak sensors. While the concept, which uses unused optical fibre strands, aka ‘dark fibre’, has already been demonstrated, the next phase is focussed on proving it at scale as well as building industry confidence to bring the technology to market.

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SES Water is investigating a complementarity approach, with what it has named a ‘universal access point for water’. Part of tackling leakage is an accurate understanding of the condition of the water mains and the ability to carry out inspections and repairs without the need for expensive and disruptive excavations. The project is aimed to design such a universal access point with a standardised entry for use for inserting cameras, leak location arrays, repair solutions, autonomous robotic solutions or a host of other devices.

“We’re really excited to be developing the universal access point, which will enable water companies to reduce water leakage and manage their current buried asset base far more effectively,” says Jeremy Heath, Innovation Manager at SES Water.

An EV battery for all seasons

As electric vehicles (EVs) have become more widespread drivers have increasingly observed a drop in performance in the winter, as have other users of electronic devices with lithium-ion batteries such as cameras.

The issue is attributable to the electrolyte starting to freeze in sub-zero temperatures. But this may soon be a thing of the past with the development by a team of scientists from the US Department of Energy’s Argonne and Lawrence Berkeley national laboratories of what is effectively an anti-freeze electrolyte with fluorine.

In testing with laboratory cells, the team’s fluorinated electrolyte retained stable energy storage capacity for 400 charge-discharge cycles at -20oC. Even at that sub-zero temperature, the capacity was equivalent to that of a cell with a conventional carbonate-based electrolyte at room temperature.

The team also determined at the atomic scale why their electrolyte composition worked so well, depending on the position of the fluorine atoms within the molecules in the electrolyte transporting lithium ions and the number of those atoms.

The researchers anticipate that the anti-freeze electrolyte shows promise of working not only for batteries in EVs, but also in energy storage for electric grids as well as for consumer electronic devices.

Next-gen optoelectronics in prospect

Optoelectronic devices – that convert light into energy – are widely used in applications from solar PV panels to TV screens and smartphone displays.

These rely on semiconductor materials to operate but expanding the current capabilities of optoelectronics with improved performance and new functionalities lies in finding new non-silicon semiconductors.

Kyusang Lee, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering and materials science and engineering at the University of Virginia School of Engineering and Applied Science, has been investigating such new systems with a ‘mixed-dimensional heterostructure’ approach involving the joining together of 2D and 3D semiconductor materials.

A material system engineered this way has the potential to efficiently detect a wide range of frequencies on the electromagnetic spectrum, including ultraviolet, visible and infrared light. But before tapping that potential, more understanding is needed on the optical and electronic properties of the heterostructure, specifically how electrical charges and energy move across the 2D-3D junction through a ‘hybrid charge transfer exciton’.

Now with funding from the US Air Force, Lee aims to describe the quantum (atomic level) physics of his proposed heterojunctions. Then mixed-dimensional heterostructures would be fabricated to validate the model predictions.

Eventually, the aim is to enable the learnings to be applied to design a wide array of optoelectronic sensing technologies.

While the technology is clearly of potential interest for military applications, another potential one could be to improve the efficiency of PV panels to operate in non-sunny conditions and possibly even at night.

The project addressed challenges raised by the uncertainty related to solar output by offering advanced forecasting methods and making a roadmap to help maintain grid reliability, optimise production of renewables and reduce operating costs.

High quality weather forecasting models “will be vital to the operations of utilities and independent system operators,” said Alan Ettlinger, senior director of the New York Power Authority’s Research, Technology Development and Innovation team.

The study showed how how more extensive data and advanced solar-focused models were able to increase the degree of accuracy and granularity that will be needed to maintain grid reliability and support operations.

The study, the final $1.5 million phase of a $2.4 million project, was funded by NYPA, the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, and the Department of Energy’s Solar Energy Technologies Office, and co-managed by EPRI, an independent, non-profit energy R&D institute.

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Other partners included National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), Brookhaven National Lab and the State University of New York at Albany.

High-definition digital cameras were deployed in sky-imager networks and advanced weather forecasting models focused on solar forecasting, combined with advanced data from the NYS Mesonet, a statewide network of weather stations, and other resources. Advanced predictive methods were developed and evaluated against forecasts currently in use to show the benefits of more detailed models and data.

The study relied on an open-source, gridded solar power forecasting system. NYSolarCast makes predictions of global horizontal irradiance (GHI) every 15 minutes for a three-kilometer grid covering all of New York.

Those predictions were then used to predict solar power generation for both utility-scale photovoltaic (PV) plants and distributed (mostly rooftop) PV installations. NYSolarCast used machine learning techniques trained on NCAR-based weather prediction models, NYS Mesonet observations and historical data from PV plants across New York.

The study helped develop an underlying platform for solar and other utility-related weather forecasting, including building load management, based on improved solar irradiance forecasts.

Results indicated that the solar industry needs to take steps to be more transparent by sharing data, having better maintenance and monitoring instrumentation, and filtering out erroneous data.

The new models could also form the basis of improved commercial tools. Several companies currently provide forecasting services for New York State, particularly for day ahead operations based on weather modeling. Improved forecasts could be applied to individual solar plants and to predict distributed solar across a large region, not only for NYISO, but also for generation, transmission and distribution companies, private developers, and end user customers.

The report is available here.

Solar to carpet railways

With pressures on land availability for solar PV and lots of open space on railways, the Swiss start-up Sun-Ways has come up with the idea of ‘carpetting’ the space between the railway tracks with PV panels.

Although not the first to the concept – Germany’s Deutsche Bahn and the British company Bankset Energy have been testing solar cells attached to sleepers in railways in Saxony – Sun-Ways claim to be the first with a patented system for rapid installation and mechanical removal both to facilitate the work of installers but also to allow for necessary railway maintenance.

With a special train travelling along the rails, the panels can be laid and locked in place as it goes, just like “the unrolling of a carpet”, the company is quoted as saying.

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Sun-Ways suggests three ways to use the renewable electricity produced – injected into the railway company’s LV network to supply infrastructure such as switches and signalling, injected into the electricity network of the nearest DSO or injected into the traction energy network that supplies the locomotives, for which latter initiatives are underway in Switzerland.

Likewise trains can carry a cylindrical brush for cleaning the panels as they pass over them.

Subject to final approval Sun-Ways expects to pilot its PV system near Buttes station in the west of Switzerland in May.

Brain-inspired computing for more energy efficient devices

The human brain is highly energy efficient, able in computing terms to perform the equivalent of an exaflop mathematical operations per second with just 20W of power. In comparison, one of the most powerful supercomputers in the world, the Oak Ridge Frontier, recently demonstrated exaflop computing but needed 20MW – a million times more power – to achieve this feat.

With this background, a group of researchers at the US National Institute of Standards and Technology are looking to the brain as a guide in developing a powerful yet energy efficient computer circuit design.

The challenge, the researchers say, is that energy efficiency has emerged as the predominant factor limiting the creation of more powerful computer chips. The approach being pursued by the researchers is what is dubbed ‘race logic’, in which signals race against each other with the timing telling something about the solution to the problem.

At a practical level an example would be barn owls, which have been verified to use the difference in the arrival times of a sound to each ear to locate their prey.

In computing terms, race logic is about reducing the activity in the circuits. In conventional digital computers problems are solved by sending bits of information – 0s and 1s – on wires through a circuit. During circuit operation, bits regularly flip their values from 0 to 1 and vice versa, with each bit flip consuming energy. Race logic reduces the activity by encoding information in the timing of those bit flips.

The researchers are exploring mathematical techniques and practical technologies to make this concept even more efficient.

Propellor design for future electric aircraft

Electric planes of the future will be much quieter than their current counterparts – except for the noise of the rotating propellors, which could be obtrusive both for passengers on the planes and for those on the ground.

Considering this fact, and that the initial main focus of e-aviation will be on short-haul national and regional propellor driven aircraft, researchers at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden have been exploring the noise that occurs at the tip of the propeller blades – the ‘tip vortices’ – and report being able to fully understand its role in relation to other noise sources generated by the blades.

Out of this has emerged a propeller design method adjusting a range of parameters, such as pitch angle, chord length and number of blades.

What the researchers found is that the more blades a propeller has, the lower the noise emissions, but also the efficiency and thus the range of the plane reduces.

“Modern aircraft propellers usually have two to four blades, but we’ve found that by using six blades designed using our optimisation framework, you can develop a propeller that’s both relatively efficient and quiet,” says Hua-Dong Yao, associate professor and researcher in fluid dynamics and marine technology at Chalmers University.

He explains that the propeller achieves a noise reduction of up to 5-8 dBA with only a 3.5% thrust penalty, compared to a propeller with three blades.

“That’s comparable to the noise reduction of someone going from speaking in a normal conversation voice to the sound you would perceive in a quiet room.”

The project taking place at NTU’s testbed on the Semakau landfill comprises solar photovoltaic panels and a wind turbine that are interconnected in a microgrid.

The research led by NTU’s Energy Research Institute is investigating how different renewable sources can be integrated with energy storage systems including batteries and hydrogen fuel cells.

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Future-proofing Singapore’s grid
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The aim is to generate new knowledge that can help engineers design smarter and more resilient energy grids for urban populations of the future, with flexibility for deployment in islanded grids and off-grid communities.

“Essentially, this is a demonstration of how an offshore renewable grid will look like in many other countries in the region, where renewables are being integrated with conventional power grids to supplement their power supply, or in remote communities, where the grid has to be a standalone,” says the Institute’s executive director, Professor Madhavi Srinivasan.

The research forms part of the Renewable Energy Integration Demonstrator – Singapore (REIDS), one of the largest in southeast Asia, which is situated on the island of Semakau to the south of Singapore.

The facility, which provides power for the islanded, is intended to provide a real-world testing environment for new technologies, with waivers for the standard regulatory conditions.

Grid test scenarios available include dynamic system optimisation, smart grid clusters network management, energy trading, interoperability and cybersecurity.

Scaling up battery production in Europe

Romanian battery company Prime Batteries Technology, which produces lithium-ion batteries and tailor-made battery systems for the energy, automotive and industrial sectors, is partnering with the sustainable energy innovation engine EIT Innoenergy to scale up its battery production to 8GWh annually.

Under an investment agreement, Prime Batteries Technology is targeting annual output of 2GWh by 2024 and the 8GWh by 2026.

Vicentiu Ciobanu, chief executive officer at Prime Batteries Technology, says the company is delivering advanced storage solutions to various international customers, with the majority of the orders for 2023 and 2024 already secured.

“Due to growing demand, we need to increase our production capacity. We will do this by further developing our smart factory that at the same time enables us to make batteries at a significantly lower cost.”

As part of the plan, Prime Batteries Technology intends to attract and access new talent.

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Advancing e-mobility in Japan

Continuing the battery theme Japanese vehicle manufacturer Daihatsu, a subsidiary of Toyota, has entered in to an agreement with Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. for the stable supply of batteries for the company’s electric vehicles.

The goal is to promote e-mobility in Japan, with Daihatsu planning to ramp up the production and performance of its EVs, which also will be supplied to certain emerging markets.

Daihatsu also expects the agreement to accelerate its transition to net zero, while CATL regards it as another step in the expansion of its global footprint, which is currently focussed on southeast Asia.

New solar community in New York

A 7MW community solar project has been completed in New York state by Standard Solar, Catalyst Power and SolarPark Energy and is dedicated to Tom Guzek, the founder of the latter, a New York-based community solar project developer.

“Tommy would have been so excited to see this project come to fruition,” said Anne Cassidy, Managing Partner of SolarPark Energy.

“This is his legacy. He would have been honoured to be here today, but he’s here in spirit, I am absolutely sure.”

The project in the town of York is comprised of a single-axis tracker system, which is projected to produce approximately 10.8MWh annually and will allow local residents and businesses to benefit from clean energy savings by offsetting their electricity bills with solar energy.

Support for the project was provided by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA), with community projects promoted in New York to support the state to meeting its clean energy goals.

Join Enlit Europe in Frankfurt and be part of the conversation about the energy transition in Europe and beyond.

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The ‘Friendly’ platform for smart meters and IoT devices

Israeli IoT and device management company Friendly Technologies has set its eye on managing tens of millions of IoT-enabled utility smart meters for electricity, water, gas and heating.

The company reports entering the realm of smart utilities with multiple new IoT projects spanning the globe, alongside its recent platform upgrade to enable the introduction of “new projects and verticals with ease”.

Friendly Technologies counts over 250 active customers worldwide, primarily in the telecom vertical but also including smart home providers and device manufacturers.

Its platform is designed to enable organisations to manage devices, collect and analyse data, implement automated workflows, integrations, multi-tenancies, access control, create unique dashboards and more in one user interface.

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Microgrid for powering EV bus fleet

The first clean energy microgrid in the Washington DC region, at the Brookville Smart Energy Bus Depot in Montgomery County, Maryland, has been energised and is now in operation for the EV bus fleet.

The initiative by The Mobility House, in collaboration with partners including Schneider Electric, comprises an integrated 6.5MW microgrid using onsite solar canopies, natural gas generators, battery storage and microgrid controls and electric bus charging infrastructure to support 70 electric buses – a solution that can run ‘islanded’ independent of the local utility.

The Mobility House’s smart charging and energy management system, ChargePilot, coordinates charging with the microgrid by optimising the buses’ charging schedules based on route blocks and energy demands to ensure vehicle readiness.

Mobility House US MD Gregor Hintler describes the management of EV charging within a microgrid as a technological achievement.

“The Brookville Smart Energy Bus Depot is a momentous achievement not only for resilient public transportation but also in demonstrating the power of integrated technologies to provide sustainable community resources.”

Solar harvesting for IoT sensors

Powering sensors for Internet of Things applications and geolocation use cases such as asset tracking in supply chains in particular can prove challenging but Swedish solar company Exeger and the semiconductor supplier Semtech report having come up with a solution.

In a demonstration, Exeger’s Powerfoyle solar harvesting cell technology was combined with Semtech’s LoRa Edge platform to reveal a significant extension of battery life in such sensors.

The Powerfoyle material is flexible and durable, enabling it to be integrated seamlessly into any electronics device.

Semtech’s LoRa Edge scans GNSS satellites as well as Wi-Fi SSIDs and partitions the processing between IoT devices and the LoRa Cloud to determine the location. The cloud-based solver significantly reduces the power consumption and thereby increases the battery life.

“Coupling the benefits of Powerfoyle with the ultra-low power capabilities of Semtech’s LoRa® devices will provide IoT applications with an extended or even unlimited battery life,” said Dr Oscar Hemberg, chief product integration officer at Exeger.

More Technology trending news

New solar cell breaks efficiency records

Perovskite is emerging as the material for the next generation of solar cells and new research at Northwestern University in Illinois is continuing to drive the technology forward.

In the work published in the journal Nature, the researchers demonstrate the production of a tandem solar cell using two different layers of perovskites, each tuned to a different part of the solar spectrum, providing both an extremely high efficiency of 27.4% and a record-setting voltage of 2.19 electron volts.

The prototype solar cell measures 1cm2 in area and the top perovskite layer absorbs well in the ultraviolet part of the spectrum as well as some visible light, while the bottom layer is tuned more toward the infrared.

“Between the two, we cover more of the spectrum than would be possible with silicon,” says postdoctoral researcher Chongwen Li.

But the bigger breakthrough the researchers report is the coating of the surface of the perovskite layer where light is absorbed and transformed into excited electrons with a substance known as 1,3-propanediammonium, which evens out the electric field across the surface and leads to the big improvement in the overall efficiency.

Next, the team hopes to scale their production for commercial use, further enhancing the tandem cell’s efficiency and improving its stability.

Cobalt-free cathode for lithium-ion batteries

Researchers at the University of California, Irvine and four national laboratories have devised a way to make lithium-ion battery cathodes without using cobalt, a mineral mined almost exclusively in the Democratic Republic of Congo and plagued by price volatility and geopolitical complications.

Using a technique named ‘high-entropy doping’, the researchers were able to fabricate a cathode using an amalgamation of metals magnesium, titanium, manganese, molybdenum and niobium in the structure’s interior, with a subset of them on its surface and interface with other battery materials.

This was then demonstrated to exhibit high heat tolerance and stability over repeated charge and discharge cycles, i.e. the conditions required for batteries in commercial use.

Up to now the most common substitute for cobalt has been nickel, but nickel based cathodes are prone to both thermal and chemical-mechanical instabilities which can lead to oxidisation of the battery materials and in a worst case explosion.

The finding opens the way for potential commercial applications and the development of an energy-dense alternative to existing batteries

Boosting PV and battery efficiencies

Improving the efficiencies of solar PV and battery storage will make them ever more attractive to consumers but substantial improvements are likely to come only with the design of new materials.

One approach may come from a new advance with the use of an algorithm on a quantum computer to solve an instance of the so-called Fermi-Hubbard model, which models materials at the atomic level.

“The Fermi-Hubbard instance in this experiment represents a crucial step towards solving realistic materials systems using a quantum computer,” says Ashley Montanaro, co-founder of quantum algorithms company Phasecraft and Professor of Quantum Computation at the University of Bristol.

It also is only a first step and the possibility of using the technique to develop new materials is still some way off but the researchers anticipate from the results so far that they will be able to scale their methods to leverage more powerful quantum computers as the hardware improves in the future.

The experiment is reported as four times larger with ten times more quantum gates than previous efforts, which have only succeeded in solving small, highly simplified Fermi-Hubbard instances on a quantum computer.

Mapping mineral dust for the climate

Fine mineral dust drawn into the air in windy desert areas such as the Sahara and the US’s Nevada can heat or cool the surrounding air but scientists are out on whether it has an overall heating or cooling effect at local, regional and global scales.

But that could change with NASA’s EMIT (Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source) investigation, which will secure images from instruments in the International Space Station for subsequent analysis and modelling in order to improve understanding of the dusts’ impact on the climate.

EMIT’s principal investigator Robert Green, a senior research scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, says that the initiative expects to gather billions of new spectroscopic measurements comprehensively mapping the minerals of the Earth’s arid regions – about 25% of the land surface – in less than a year.

Initial maps produced during the instrument calibration include the northwest Nevada region, highlighting locations dominated by kaolinite, a light-coloured mineral whose particles scatter light upward and cool the air, and a sparsely populated area of the Sahara south of Tripoli, showing not only substantial amounts of kaolinite but also of iron oxides that strongly absorb energy from the Sun and heat the atmosphere.

XPENG X2 EV takes to the sky

The Chinese tech company XPENG AEROHT’s X2 electric vehicle could just be the fantasy fulfilment for those who recall ‘Chitty Chitty Bang Bang’ – that 1960s story of an old Grand Prix car that was transformed into a magical flying car by the eccentric inventor Caractacus Potts.

XPENG AEROHT believes that the future of urban transport is with flying vehicles and the X2, the company’s fifth-generation model, is a two seater with an enclosed cockpit with a minimalist teardrop-shaped aerodynamic design.

The flying EV, which has given its first public flight in Dubai, offers both manual and autonomous drive modes with simple start, return and landing operations at the touch of a button. As an EV it is emission free.

The vehicle will be suitable for future low-altitude city flights and is perfect for short-distance city journeys such as sightseeing and medical transportation, its developers promise.

The next sixth generation model, on which development is under way, is planned to be able to drive both in the air and on roads.

Project Girona, Northern Ireland’s first smart grid project, was designed by The Electric Storage Company to demonstrate the potential benefits of a smart local energy storage system in combination with rooftop solar PV.

The £4.5 million (US$5 million) project involved a total of 60 properties, including two businesses, two community centres, two farms and 54 homes in the Ballysally area of Coleraine in the north of Northern Ireland, which were fitted with the solar panels and storage batteries (the latter the SB10 from Sonnen).

The project results are that over the course of a year a total of 171MWh of renewable electricity was generated, of which 31MWh was exported to the grid, and 40.2t of CO2 was saved.

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The combined savings were almost £27,000, or an average £450 per property.

Eddie McGoldrick, co-founder of The Electric Storage Company said the company had been working on bringing the technology to market for seven years.

“Combining battery storage with renewable technology is the way forward in future-proofing homes from the escalating energy costs that we’re seeing today,” he says.

“[The technology] is now available to customers across Northern Ireland, who can benefit from reduced electricity costs, whilst reducing their carbon footprint.”

Project Girona was undertaken with support from the UK government through UK Research and Innovation.

Alongside the Project Girona smart grid implementation, the Electric Storage Company also has developed the ‘Tesc One’ service to optimise the charging of the battery, such as topping up the charge at the cheapest time of use tariffs, while for businesses its Paris energy management platform is available.

AI for the birds

All electricity infrastructure is a potential haven or hazard for birds and while numerous studies have been done on the impacts of for example transmission lines and wind turbines, little has been undertaken on the increasingly widespread solar facilities.

Scientists at the US DOE’s Argonne National Laboratory are now redressing this gap with a three-year project to deploy advanced cameras and artificial intelligence to monitor the bird activity at these facilities.

Already video collected at such sites is being used to train computer algorithms to recognise birds in the scenes and to classify specific types of avian activities, including flying between and above panels, perching on panels, landing on the ground and colliding with panels.

“We don’t have a full picture of how birds use these sites, because the minute you put someone on the ground, the birds fly off or they do something in reaction to the human surveyor,” says Misti Sporer, environmental development director for Duke Energy, which operates more than 65 solar plants in the US.

For example, often the cause of bird fatalities is not apparent but the collection of a large amount of near-real-time data on collisions including the season, time of day and speed and trajectory of the bird could help to understand the cause and magnitude of these.

Also of interest: High voltage birdspotting: Elia uses drones for collision prevention

First lithium iron phosphate battery cell prototype in Europe

Serbian lithium iron phosphate (LFP) battery pioneer ElevenEs has reported the production of a prototype of what it calls “the largest battery cell in Europe” following a two-year development programme and expects to start customer deliveries in the first quarter of 2023.

LiFP technology is expected to take up a significant proportion of the battery market, in particular for electric vehicles (EVs), due to its safety, cost and sustainability benefits over Li-ion batteries. In EVs LFP batteries have been found to provide twice the longevity of other technologies and several manufacturers including Tesla, Volkswagen, BMW, Mercedes and Ford have already introduced them.

“After creating and testing more than 500 laboratory sample cells, we have developed the final cell chemistry and design,” says Nemanja Mikać, CEO of ElevenEs, commenting that three cell sizes will be offered.

ElevenEs also is expanding its production capabilities, with the first step to gigafactory scale targeting 8GWh for 200,000 EVs per year by the end of 2025.

Currently, most of the LFP cell production has been in China.

Lithium mine for EVs

Meanwhile, Canadian miner Snow Lake Lithium is developing a renewables powered all-electric lithium mine to supply the resource to the North American EV industry.

Snow Lake Lithium’s 22,250ha site is expected to produce 160,000t of 6% lithium spodumene a year over a 10-year period – enough to power around 5 million EVs, or about 500,000 EVs per year. But the company is confident that its estimated resource could increase as currently only approximately 1% of the site has been explored.

To enable a seamless integration of the supply chain, Snow Lake Lithium plans to establish a joint venture lithium hydroxide processing plants in CentrePort, Winnipeg in southern Manitoba.

An MOU has been inked with LG Energy Solutions to explore this opportunity, which would include the 10-year supply of lithium to LG following the start of commercial production, which is targeted for 2025.

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Moon to Mars

NASA has released its Moon to Mars strategy to develop a blueprint for sustained human presence and exploration in the solar system.

The strategy contains no less than 63 final objectives in the areas of science, transportation and habitation, infrastructure on the two bodies and operations.

With electricity key for any form of habitation, little wonder that the top infrastructure objectives are to develop an incremental lunar power generation and distribution system that is evolvable to support continuous robotic/human operation and is capable of scaling to global power utilization and industrial power levels and to develop Mars surface power sufficient for an initial human exploration campaign.

The former of these is already well under way and in due course any implementation will require suitably trained energy personnel. For those lucky enough to go on to Mars, they can start preparing with the newly release Marstimer – a watch based on Omega’s Speedmaster that was developed with the European Space Agency and displays the time on both the Earth and Mars.

“Space-tough and Mars-mission ready” is the tagline for the watch, which was developed for ESA engineers and scientists to help operate the planned Rosalind Franklin Mars rover.

The toolkit called GridDS provides an integrated energy data storage and augmentation infrastructure, as well as a flexible and comprehensive set of machine-learning models.

By providing an integrative software platform to train and validate machine learning models, GridDS aims to help improve the efficiency of distributed energy resources (DERs), such as smart meters, batteries and solar photovoltaic (PV) units.

LLNL cites the growing number of smart meters across the US, which will generate an immense amount of data.  According to the LLNL, while energy standards have enabled large-scale data collection and storage, best practice methods of using this data to mitigate costs and consumer demand has been an ongoing focus of their research.

The GridDS is hoped to help make the most of such data.

“Until now, no open-source platforms have provided data integration or machine learning models. The few existing platforms have been proprietary and not available to the broader research community,” stated principal investigator and data scientist Indra Chakraborty at the Laboratory’s Center for Applied Scientific Computing (CASC).

“As an open-source toolkit, GridDS opens the door to data and power scientists everywhere who are working on these challenges and want to make the most of this data.”

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GridDS is designed to leverage advanced metering infrastructure (AMI), outage management systems data, supervisory control data acquisition and geographic information systems (GIS) to forecast energy demands and detect incipient grid failures.

The platform features a modular, generalisable Python software library for these multiple streams of data. In adapting to disparate datasets recorded by various devices, it provides a range of functionalities not presently implemented in current advanced distribution management systems (ADMS), which tend to have highly specific software infrastructure by design.

“Previous experiments have demonstrated that when it comes to applying the best machine learning model for a given energy problem, one shoe does not fit all. Each scenario is different, and context is key,” said Vaibhav Donde, associate program lead for Energy Infrastructure Modernization.

“We have found that researchers are better off trying several approaches to see what works best. With GridDS, you can make small tweaks to task designs, such as horizon or history in an autoregression, or carry over machine learning models between datasets, which enables learning transfer and broader model validation. GridDS can take general approaches, apply them to highly specific energy tasks and evaluate and validate their performance,” added Donde.

GridDS can also test several approaches to energy and sensor time-series problems and train model hyperparameters.

GridDS is available via Github and is funded by the Department of Energy’s Grid Modernization Lab Consortium (GMLC).

PortAventura World, the site of five hotels and a convention centre along with a range of commercial and leisure facilities, has released plans to develop a 6MW solar PV plant and a total of 150 electric vehicle (EV) charging stations spread throughout the resort.

Both initiatives are being undertaken with Endesa X, Endesa’s value-add service provider.

The PV generation plant, set to be the largest for a Spanish tourist destination, should generate 10GWh annually amounting to almost one-third of the resort’s energy needs.

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PortAventura Solar, as it is named, involves an investment of almost €5 million ($5.1 million). Construction is set to take place over four months with a landscape integration and impact plan designed to reduce its visual effect and preserve the environment.

In order to connect the solar system to the park’s existing electricity infrastructure, a 25kV underground medium voltage line will be laid along with 6MW inverters.

The facility, which will be operated by PortAventura World, is also planned to include an environmental education area.

The EV charging stations will be distributed at seven sites throughout the park and similarly are expected to be completed well before year end.

Use of them will be made available to the company’s own fleet of vehicles, its clients and guests, as well as employees and suppliers. In this way, all users of EVs visiting the park should be guaranteed power for their vehicles at all times and in different locations.

With the implementation of this electric charging infrastructure, PortAventura World is ahead of the Spanish legislation due to come into effect in January 2023 obliging public car parks to have a minimum of one parking space with electric charging for every 40 non-electrified spaces.

Choni Fernández, Director of Sustainability at PortAventura World, says the business is committed to sustainability and these initiatives are another link in the chain.

PortAventura World is a member of the UN Global Compact with its commitments to sustainability initiatives. Among its next objectives is to join the Science Based Targets (SBTi) initiative with the setting of science-based emissions reduction targets.

The project, in collaboration with perovskite PV pioneers Oxford PV and academics at University College London, is aimed to support the development of quantum computing to simulate “currently intractable problems” in PV materials modelling, according to a statement.

The award from UK Research and Innovation’s Commercialising Quantum Technologies Challenge, the full details of which have not yet been made available, should develop a modelling capability that is tailored to the real-world needs of the PV industry, the statement continues.

“Phasecraft has already proven that quantum computers have the potential to revolutionise materials modelling, even before fully scalable, fault-tolerant quantum computers become available,” says Toby Cubitt, Phasecraft director and co-founder and faculty member of UCL’s Quantum Science and Technology Institute.

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“We know that photovoltaics has a crucial role to play in the transition to green energy and we are hugely excited to be the ones making quantum computing part of the green revolution.”

Oxford PV is pioneering the tandeming of perovskite – a calcium-based mineral semiconductor – with conventional silicon solar cells to improve their efficiency and performance, which is close to being reached.

So far the tandem technology has achieved a solar conversion efficiency above 31%, which is well in excess of the average 15-20% achieved by silicon cells alone and greater than their 26% practical efficiency limit.

With further developments, the technology could move closer to its 43% theoretical efficiency limit.

In the project, Phasecraft will draw on work ongoing under a 2020 UKRI award to apply quantum computing to modelling the design of battery materials.

“The results we have obtained for battery materials are hugely encouraging and show how our work can really make the difference in critically important areas,” Cubitt adds.

With quantum computing still nascent, projects such as these are opening the way for its wider application in the energy sector as use cases are explored to establish the advantages over classical computing.

Another earlier UKRI quantum computing award in the sector was handed to National Grid Gas and others on new sensing architectures for gas leak detection.

Climate change and the European energy crisis are two of arguably the most prominent topics at the moment, with widespread concern over the efficacy of energy systems and the onslaught of climate change consequences.  

Two companies – PV inverter and energy storage systems manufacturer GoodWe as well as Aico, which develops new alarm technologies – have released solutions to enable resilience in the face of such threats from one’s own home.

In particular, GoodWe has released its EcoSmart Home to enable consumer resilience in the face of potential grid concerns while Aico’s Internet of Things (IoT)-enabled HomeLINK solution has displayed the capability of smart technology to predict and adapt to climate change-induced disasters, such as fires.

EcoSmart Home solution

EcoSmart Home, which is being rolled out in the UK by GoodWe, is touted as a complete green energy solution.

The smart solution consists of Building Integrated Photovoltaics (BIPV) panels, storage and an energy management system.

The smart home solution sees generation delivered by the company’s PV building solutions that combines PV technology with architectural aesthetics.

An energy storage solution (ESS) comprises a Lynx home battery that uses lithium iron phosphate (LFP) battery cell technology and hybrid inverters to optimise energy output, maximising self-consumption and facilitating back-up power.

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The battery system stores excess solar power generated from the BIPV to inject into the grid to avoid restricting solar production. When solar production is weak the battery will discharge to support load consumption around the home.

Charge and discharge times can be set, enabling the battery to be charged at off-peak rates and, if the charge in the battery is low, the system can automatically switch to grid power.

The final component in the EcoSmart Home solution is the GoodWe Smart Energy Management System (SEMS), which provides control over the home energy system, enabling the monitoring of PV modules, the checking of energy consumption and the customisation of load working hours to maximise power output.

SEMS includes the GoodWe EV charger which can supply solar power to electric vehicles.

HomeLINK

Aico’s HomeLINK IoT platform aims to address numerous challenges within the housing sector, such as compliance, sustainability and disrepair.

When connected to the Ei1000G Gateway, landlords can access information and data from fire and carbon monoxide alarms and environmental sensors.

The IoT project has reportedly already had a life-saving impact on residents by identifying dangerous levels of carbon monoxide within several properties.

The remote data insight enabled Barnet Homes, a housing association in London, to react appropriately, keep residents safe and perform the necessary maintenance duties.

Stuart Bishop, director of property services of Barnet Homes, who supported the Barnet Homes IoT roll-out, commented on the technology’s approach to remote monitoring: “This approach should provide added assurance for our residents as it enables us to proactively manage any fire safety device issues and alarms.

“Ultimately, with the complete roll-out across TBG homes, resource efficiencies will be possible with fewer physical checks required. We are keen to work with AICO to explore extended benefits of these devices including adding environmental sensors which can highlight damp and mould issues early on.”

The modular essentially containerised technology is comprised of retractable solar PV, green hydrogen production and storage, fuel cells and battery storage that can be tailored to individual needs.

Models range in size from 3 to 12m with solar power production between 3-20kW and total battery storage of 15-150kWh and are said to be easy to transport and move about, whether by road, sea or air.

With a key use case considered as disaster response, they are designed and tested for extreme weather conditions and they also are easy to operate, with set up by one person.

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“Our nanogrids are changing the trajectory of the effects of climate change while providing communities in distress with the power they need to access critical resources,” says Sesame Solar CEO Lauren Flanagan, an early SaaS pioneer who counts working with Steve Jobs at his technology company NeXT.

“While we can’t stop hurricanes or wildfires from happening, we can create solutions that help communities recover efficiently without causing further damage to the environment.”

Sesame Solar reports that early users of the nanogrids include the US Air Force, major telcos and emergency response organisations.

Popular use cases include power for mobile medical clinics, community services, water purification, communications and electric vehicle charging with the latter also able to provide power to the transporting electric truck.

Sesame Solar also reports being called upon to support the island of Dominica in the wake of Hurricane Maria in 2017 and in 2021 worked with Comcast to support communication recovery after Hurricane Ida.

VC backers of Sesame Solar include Morgan Stanley, VSC Ventures, PAX Angels and BELLE Capital.

The system comprises a 6MWp solar photovoltaic system and 15MWh battery energy storage system with integrated onsite control, monitoring, data management and display solution, which is supplying power to the town’s approximately 1,400 households.

Additionally, the system integrates 271 1kW rooftop solar panels, 1,610 smart meters and an electric vehicle charging station.

“This was a very prestigious project for Mahindra Susten,” says Pramod Kalyanshetty, Head Procurement and Chief Risk Officer at Mahindra Susten, the engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) contractor, commenting that it is regarded as symbolic.

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Modhera is home to the Sun Temple, a protected archaeological Hindu complex dedicated to the solar deity Surya.

The power plant controller and energy management system were supplied by the DNV company GreenPowerMonitor to provide both automatic and manual controls. Specifically, complex controls enabled include black start, islanding, anti-islanding, energy shifting, state of charge management and balancing, as well as frequency and voltage support.

Large-scale electrification with solar PV is enabling the delivery of power in rural India but last-mile connectivity and quality of access to 24/7 power remain a challenge. The Modhera project thus serves as a model that can be replicated and more such hybrid solar PV and storage projects should follow.

“Combining solar PV and batteries in a hybrid project is challenging, but opens a wide range of possibilities to provide 100% renewable and clean energy to local communities,” says Sergi Bosque Garcia, Regional Manager for MEA & India at GreenPowerMonitor.

“We are proud of this community livelihood improvement flagship project, that can be replicated in other regions with similar needs. We hope that this becomes a standard solution and a benchmark in the renewable energy industry.”

But miners continue to face growing opposition. In New York a bill is going through legislative proceedings to ban Bitcoin mining and there have been calls for a ban in other locations such as the European Union, although these latter have – for now at least – been rejected.

One of the arguments advanced in for example Sweden was that renewable energy use by Bitcoin miners might leave the country insufficient for other uses such as decarbonising industry. On the face of it this is a reasonable argument, but the question arises as to how renewable energy should be apportioned in such situations and who makes that decision?

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For their part of course the miners argue the considerable economic benefits they bring and they can add their own renewable generation, which can bolster the meeting of national targets but does nothing towards the utility’s requirements for its customers.

Another question I would categorise of an ethical nature arises is in the light of the growing number of solar PV installations in what were agricultural lands, as observed recently driving around Kent in southern England. The world’s population is in need of food, albeit very unevenly and particularly in the emerging economies rather than the ‘Garden of England’, and should energy or foodstuffs be the priority?

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And even when agricultural products such as sunflowers or sugarcane are grown, should they be used as food products or for biofuels, as in Brazil?

Farmers usually at the bottom of the value chain are likely to opt for the most profitable option and who can blame them. But ultimately these are questions – and there will be others in the future – that arise in the vision of a sustainable world in which there is increasing competition for natural resources, and they need to be more widely discussed and debated than they appear to be so far.

Do you agree?

Jonathan Spencer Jones
Specialist writer

The platform built on Energy Web’s open source technology stack is aimed to provide low cost finance for the deployment of solar home systems to communities across Africa and will allow participants to stake Energy Web Tokens (EWT) in exchange for a fixed return.

ENGIE Energy Access is a leading provider of solar and mini-grid solutions in Africa, with delivery of renewable energy to 7 million people across nine countries to date.

Still around 621 million people lack access to electricity, particularly in the remote and rural areas across the continent, which has abundant solar resources.

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In the announcement of the platform development, Stefan Zelazny, Head of Software and IT at Engie Energy Access and previously CIO at Engie Mobisol, expressed his excitement to bring crypto-based decentralised finance to rural electrification in Africa.

“We believe this can accelerate much-needed clean energy deployment throughout the region by connecting impact-oriented investors with unbanked rural customers,” he said.

The crowdfunding will be launched on May 3 2022, for a two-week pilot period, with an investment target of $100,000 to show proof-of-concept. If successful, it will be scaled up.

With the funds raised, ENGIE Energy Access will deploy its solar home systems to those in need of energy in countries across sub-Saharan Africa and in particular in countries such as Rwanda and Zambia, where electrification rates are particularly low.

The initial stake funds the solar installation, which is then paid back under a lease-to-own model, paid for in affordable installments at a lower daily installment rate than would otherwise be possible.

For their part, stakers will receive Solar Loan Tokens (SLTs) in exchange, a proof token that can be exchanged or transferred separately. In one year’s time, stakers will have the opportunity to exchange their SLT back for a 10% return on their investment.

In addition to working with the energy deficient communities, Crowdfund for Solar will aim to prioritise women among the recipients, with the target of at least 30% of the loans going to women-led households.

Once the pilot period finishes, a full report will be published on the outcome of the financing, with verification provided for the demographic target for the loans.

The concept of crowdfunding is now well established and Crowdfund for Solar joins a growing number of such blockchain-based platforms, with others including the South Africa based Sun Exchange.

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In the agreement, the largest to date, the P-RECs are obtained by the San Francisco based renewable solution provider 3Degrees from an International Organisation for Migration (IOM) managed solar plant near the city of Malakal and transferred to financial tool provider Block’s decentralised financial service system.

With this arrangement the IOM is enabled to fund the solar electrification of the Malakal Teaching Hospital, the main healthcare facility serving the city and the surrounding region.

Malakal on the White Nile in the northeast of South Sudan was destroyed in the country’s civil war that began in 2013 and now houses one of the largest camps in the country with more than 30,000 internally displaced persons.

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The solar electrification project, which is expected to be completed in mid to late 2022, should provide a reliable source of power for the hospital and enable improved health services.

The transaction also serves as pilot of a funding model that can be replicated by United Nations entities and other international organisations.

Dave Mozersky, President of Energy Peace Partners, which developed the P-REC concept, says it grew out of efforts to expand renewable energy in South Sudan, one of the most fragile and least electrified countries in the world.

“This project fulfills the original vision of the P-REC and we are excited about the positive impact this will have for communities in Malakal. More broadly, this highlights the value of the P-REC in mobilising private sector actors to support high impact projects in some of the hardest-to-reach communities,” he says.

The P-REC is an international renewable energy certificate (I-REC) with a supplementary ‘peace’ label issued by Energy Peace Partners to certify support for financing renewable energy generation in fragile, energy poor countries.

The first P-REC was executed in 2020 by Microsoft in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Under the current agreement, Energy Peace Partners issues the P-RECs generated from the IOM-managed solar plant, which supplies electricity to its Humanitarian Hub at the Malakal displaced person camp.

Following the collaboration on the first Microsoft P-REC project, Energy Peace Partners approached 3Degrees to help assess project options and navigate the contracting process, which resulted in the agreement with the IOM.

The Malakal solar plant is a 700kW PV and battery system that was introduced in 2020 as a replacement for diesel power and meets the majority of the Humanitarian Hub’s energy needs.

In addition to the DRC and South Sudan, Energy Peace Partners has been authorised as the country issuer of P-RECs and I-RECs in Somalia and Chad.

Research, development and demonstration of clean energies is common across countries and regions. However, with the limited availability of metrics, only a partial view of the outputs and outcomes are likely.

In a new study, the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) has aimed to address this issue, gathering data on the costs and performance of selected renewable technologies as well as on patents and standards with the goal to provide a quantitative measure of innovation progress.

Applied in a case study on offshore wind technologies, more than 50 indicators are identified in three ‘impact categories’ that innovation support seeks to deliver, i.e. the ecosystem, technology progress and the market.

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Innovation ecosystem indicators encompass the state of knowledge development, codification and dissemination and the state of awareness and collaboration among the various actors, public and private and national and international.

Technology progress is reflected in cost reduction, diversity of project characteristics and technology performance improvements, while the market formation is determined by the scale of technology deployment and the commercialisation of the technology.

Renewables snapshot

Key insights from the study on the current status of selected renewables are as follows:

Solar PV: The dramatic decline of solar PV costs in the last decade have been driven down significantly by technology innovation, which has also helped to enhance the performance of products. After a decline of 85% in the levelised cost of electricity between 2010 and 2020, the technology continues to adapt into new markets.

Concentrating solar power: Despite its modest deployment the competitiveness of CSP has improved consistently over the last decade. The LCOE of newly commissioned CSP plants fell by 68% between 2010 and 2020, as installed costs fell, O&M costs declined and capacity factors increased.

Behind the meter batteries: Policy support for behind-the-meter battery storage has played an important role in increasing the scale of main markets, though significant potential for growth remains. The increased research activity and a growing manufacturing landscape have meant that energy, power and safety characteristics of Li-ion battery energy storage have improved with time.

Onshore wind: With higher hub heights and larger swept areas there was an almost one-third increase in the global weighted-average capacity factor of onshore wind, from just over 27% in 2010 to 36% in 2020. Driven by cost reductions and technology improvements, the global weighted-average LCOE of onshore wind fell 56% between 2010 and 2020.

Offshore wind: With higher hub heights and swept blade areas, offshore wind capacity factors have increased over time due to technology improvements in the turbine, wind farm layout and connections and due to improved O&M practices. Between 2010 and 2020, the global weighted-average LCOE of offshore wind fell 48%.

Hydrogen electrolysers: Alkaline electrolysers showed a 60% increase between 2005 and 2020 while that for proton exchange membrane (PEM) electrolysers was even larger. The R&D effort has seen the likely efficiency of alkaline electrolysers improve by at least 10%, although the efficiency of PEM systems has likely not improved to the same extent.

Large-scale solar thermal: Europe has supported the development of solar heat for industrial process projects over the last decade, albeit in small numbers, with a more than two-thirds decline in installed costs from 2010 to 2019.

Patents and standards

The patents and standards metrics are applied to two emerging technologies, offshore wind and green hydrogen electrolysers.

For offshore wind, invention activity shows two peaks – one around 2012, followed by a decline, and the second in 2018, which due to data lags, may be continuing. European countries are leading in terms of high value inventions and have an international approach to patenting.

For green hydrogen, and water electrolysis in particular, the rapid growth of inventions after 2012 is in line with the widespread implementation of national energy plans based on the diffusion of green hydrogen technology.

Both technologies have benefitted from existing standards on wind and hydrogen, which may have contributed to their deployment.

For offshore wind technology, the first standard published in 2004 applies to the design of both onshore and offshore wind turbines. Since then, 32 standards have been published. As differences between onshore and offshore wind turbines are limited, offshore wind turbines have largely benefitted from onshore wind standards, which has helped the market to mature faster.

Hydrogen standards have followed a similar pathway. Currently, 126 standards on hydrogen and fuel cells cover production, transport, storage and use, along with cross-cutting issues including safety. The only standard for the production of green hydrogen was published in 2019, which is currently being revised and will be separated into several standards covering different aspects in more detail.

The study was supported by the European Commission’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme.

The study drawing on smart meter data from approximately 5,000 households in and around London finds that while a grid with many small-scale generators should be more robust than if using one power source, in reality with the generators operating at different times the grid doesn’t reach optimum levels for the resilience to be achieved leaving it susceptible to failures.

Domestic renewable energy generation is growing rapidly in the UK, with just over one million small-scale solar PV systems installed.

However, this supply of power is unpredictable with generators coming on and off-line intermittently and households adopting the role of consumers or producers as daily and seasonal usage and meteorological conditions vary. Without new control strategies, these fluctuations are found to put the grid at risk of system failures.

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The increasing proliferation of small, intermittent renewable power sources is causing a rapid change in the structure and composition of the power grid,” explains Oliver Smith, researcher in the School of Mathematical Science at the University of Nottingham who led the study.

“Using data from smart meters in UK households we tracked how grid composition varies over time. We then used a dynamical model to assess how these changes impact the resilience of power grids to catastrophic failures. We found that resilience varies over the course of a day and that a high uptake of solar panels can leave the grid more susceptible to failure.”

Specifically, the study addressed the resilience of renewables dominated microgrids with the analysis showing that they tend to operate in the least favourable regions of the robustness landscape, dominated either by consumption or generation.

Battery storage is a natural candidate for smoothing the supply-demand balance. However, while the installation of home battery storage increases the self-sufficiency of the consumer, it does little to ameliorate the resilience problem as these batteries are not designed to dispatch energy back upstream into the network, the researchers find.

The researchers recommend that the supply of power from these batteries should be scheduled to also optimise for power grid resilience.

They also note that nascent technologies such as vehicle-to-grid show promise for balancing renewable power systems and can be used with energy management control systems as virtual power plants.

“It is vital that any such future control schemes also take into account the dynamical properties of the network to ensure the resilience of future power grids,” they say.

The Ford F-150 Lightning, due to hit US roads during the Spring, is the first to feature the company’s Intelligent Backup Power bidirectional power technology enabling it to automatically provide power to the home in case of an outage.

Once power is restored, the system automatically reverts back to utility power.

The F-150 Lightning extended-range battery system has a capacity of 131kWh – sufficient, based on the average US’s home use of 30kWh per day, to power the home for up to three days or longer if used in conjunction with solar power or rationing.

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To benefit from the system, users need Ford’s Charge Station Pro, which was developed together with Siemens and includes an 80A charger offering an 8-hour full charge capability, and the Home Integration System, which was developed together with Sunrun.

Installation is by Sunrun, which also is able in some locations to supplement it with solar options.

“F-150 Lightning brings new innovations to customers, including the ability to power their homes when they need it most,” said Matt Stover, Ford charging and energy services director.

“Teaming up with Sunrun leverages their expertise to bring solar power to even more customers, giving them the chance to turn their truck into an incredible energy storage source – and future truck features can help accelerate the development of a less carbon-intensive grid.”

The extended range battery offers a driving range of 450-500km. With its 9.6kW output, the F-150 Lightning also can power external as well as internal devices, with eleven outlets scattered throughout the vehicle.

Ford has indicated its intention to introduce additional features in the future, such as enabling customers to power their homes with their vehicle’s battery when electricity rates are higher, while charging the truck when rates are lower.

“Partnering with Ford illustrates a momentous shift in the way we power our lives,” said Mary Powell, Sunrun CEO.

“We’ll be able to offer more paths to greater energy independence by powering homes and vehicles with the sun, while helping rapidly accelerate the transition to a clean, resilient energy future for all.”