News

Tesla quietly launched an electric four-wheeled all-terrain vehicle, the Cyberquad for Kids, on its website for $1,900; the kid-friendly ATV was, unsurprisingly, sold out within half a day. ...  more

BCC, a major Chinese supplier for various chemicals and advanced materials, announced on November 11 that it will be investing a total of RMB 750 million to build production plants for Li-ion batteries and graphite materials. The development of these projects will be carried out by its subsidiary Higee Energy and sub-subsidiary Ningxia Baichuan New Materials. ...  more

Chinese news platform Nanfang Daily reported on November 27 that construction has commenced for a series of PV projects located in Gaozhou, a county-level city administered as a part of prefecture-level city Maoming in Guangdong Province. ...  more

A development of MW-grade solar power plants would first require extensive land area to install tens of thousands of solar panels, which is not an easy task for island countries that are small in territory and large in population. That is why installations of offshore solar modules may be a good choice. The Netherlands is recently testing the feasibility of thin film solar for offshore applications. ...  more

The International Energy Agency (IEA) said that as of this October, governments around the world have allocated approximately US$470 billion for investments related to clean energy for the period up to 2030. Some of this amount is allocated to clean energy programs that are initiated as economic stimulus measures in response to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Compared with this July, the level of global investments has gone up by about US$90 billion or 20%. ...  more

German energy multinational RWE AG announced on December 6 that it will invest EUR 15 billion through to 2030 to develop renewable energy projects in Germany. ...  more

If the energy transition is to succeed, we need better home battery backup system for renewable energy. ...  more

Flow battery is regarded as a promising option for prolonged grid-level energy storage, though an attainment of high efficiency in the past was often accompanied with an exorbitant level of cost due to the necessary utilization of the expensive vanadium as raw material. ...  more

The US Court of International Trade (CIT) has ruled to exempt imported bifacial PV modules from Section 201 tariffs following the successful petition by a coalition consisting of the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA), NextEra Energy, Invenergy Renewables, and EDF Renewables. Officially publicized on November 16, the decision has reinstated the exemption that was first granted and then taken away. Furthermore, it has restored the tariff rate for this year to the originally designated level of 15%. ...  more

How does one revitalize the abandoned mines amidst the era of depleting mines and declining coal industry? A Chinese research team has recently proposed transforming these mines into hydro-pumped power plants, which would become a new type of power generation facility when being paired with solar and wind power generation equipment. ...  more