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Solar Energy

Over Easy Solar and Sempergreen cooperate for combined green and solar roofs

December 11, 2024 ryansheehanrts

Over Easy Solar’s vertical bifacial PV modules, which are specially designed to be efficiently combined with green roofs, were presented at the Solar Solutions Amsterdam trade fair and received second place in the Best Innovation Awards. The new partnership now establishes Sempergreen as the European distributor of Over Easy Solar’s PV modules for green roofs, making this solution available throughout Europe.

Lightweight Biosolar Roof

Over Easy Solar’s vertical PV units are light and efficient, making them an ideal addition to green roof systems. Weighing just 11 kg/m², the VPV modules require no ballast or mechanical fixing, making installation quick and easy. The lightweight design allows for a complete solar green roof system with a total weight of only 51 kg. This makes Over Easy and Sempergreen the lightest solar green roof system on the market, ideal for new construction and retrofit projects.

Synergistic benefits of green and solar

The vertical PV modules of Over Easy Solar ensure that plants and solar panels complement each other. The plants reflect sunlight onto the solar panels (albedo effect) and cool the roof, significantly increasing the energy production of the PV solution. The vertical design allows the green roof to benefit from partial shading by the modules, while still receiving sufficient light and rainwater and remaining easy to maintain.

Also see: The Plus – Pioneering signal from the woods

Trygve Mongstad, Founder and CEO of Over Easy Solar, emphasizes: “Our solution is specifically designed to work in harmony with plants. The partnership with Sempergreen will contribute to a more sustainable future by maximizing the potential of urban rooftops. Together, Over Easy Solar and Sempergreen provide the building blocks for future-proof and double sustainable rooftops for existing and new buildings.”

High current vertical bifacial panels

Over Easy Solar’s vertical bifacial solar panels capture light on both sides. This results in an extra high energy yield during the day. The vertical arrangement and the two-sided panels also achieve a more even energy distribution, which reduces the risk of overloading the electricity grid and also supplies energy during periods of higher electricity prices. This particular energy production profile, with two peak production cycles per day, more productive hours and good performance in winter conditions, results in a high yield per watt peak.

Also see: Richard Brink – Flexible substructures also for green roofs

Kai van Gool, Business Development Manager at Sempergreen, explains: “Green roofs and solar roofs no longer have to compromise each other. Now it is even easier to make roofs optimally sustainable by combining both solutions. This not only results in a greener living environment and an increase in biodiversity, but also increases the value of the building. We are very pleased that Sempergreen, as a distribution partner, can now provide a fantastic lightweight solution for new solar green roofs and retrofit projects on existing sedum roofs.” (hcn)

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Solar Energy

Norway: Incentives for grid-friendly charging

August 5, 2024 ryansheehanrts

The service, called eNabo was introduced recently. This is the first time that Norwegian electricity customers will be rewarded for using electricity, especially for electric car charging, at times that are favorable for the local power grid. The launch is a collaboration between Norgesnett and the software company Volue.

“We’re all rooting for the green shift, but for us as a grid operator, rooftop solar and electric cars also present a challenge. When a lot of solar energy flows into the grid from private homes on sunny days and more and more people choose to charge their electric cars at night, it creates an increasing load on the local grid,” says Vidar Kristoffersen, CEO of Norgesnett, which has around 100,000 grid customers.

The main motive behind the new service is therefore to facilitate the feeding in of more and more solar energy from roofs and increased use of electric cars without having to raise the grid rent to finance a massive grid expansion.

Smart, but not “grid smart“

„Many of us have developed a relationship with smart charging of electric cars, i.e. charging at times when electricity in the spot market is cheapest, typically at night. The problem with this type of first-generation smart charging is that it doesn’t take into account the load on the local electricity grid. It is not “grid smart”. That’s the element we’re now introducing together with Norgesnett,” says Kjetil Storset, who heads the “neighborhood systems” initiative at Volue. This initiative goes under the name Spark.

Also interesting: 10 innovative developments for electric mobility

“In practice, the system will be handled through operators that offer smart charging. The service will be offered in areas where the network is seen to be particularly heavily loaded. Initially, this will apply to around 130 neighborhoods, but the number will increase as new solar production is rolled out. End-customers who choose to join the scheme will receive an extra line on their grid rent invoice from Norgesnett where the compensation will appear. This will be independent of which electricity supplier you buy electricity from.

Helping to keep grid tariffs down

With the new system, the grid company will receive a continuously updated forecast of production, consumption and bottlenecks in the local power grid in the coming days.

According to NVE, Norgesnett is the country’s most efficient grid company. “We are passionate about keeping our grid tariffs as low as possible, so it’s important to think in new ways, which we are contributing to here,” says Kristoffersen, and adds: “If we do nothing, we will soon be faced with two options. Either enormous grid investments, which customers will pay for through increased grid rent. Or throttling solar energy production and electric car charging to avoid overloading. In that case, we think it’s much better to give customers a small premium for charging “grid-smart” with short-distance solar energy.

Also see: Double investments in power distribution or lose race to net-zero

“This is a good start and one of several tools needed for us to develop more solar power in Norway,” says Solar Energy Cluster CEO Trine Kopstad Berentsen. (hcn)

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Solar Energy

Industry decarbonization – Norway: EnBW starts marketing process for green ammonia

July 26, 2024 ryansheehanrts

The plan is to make the quantities available from 2027. They can be transported to various delivery locations, such as the port of Skipavika in Norway, to selected terminals in Western Europe or to industrial sites, including in Germany. Interested companies can register online to tender for the corresponding capacities. The process starts today, Friday (July 26).

SkiGA is considered one of the first emission-free production plants for green ammonia in Europe thanks to the use of local green electricity and is thus doing important pioneering work for the realization of climate-friendly production processes in industry and the energy sector. The planned electrolyzer has a capacity of 130 megawatts. The climate-friendly production process will save around 240,000 tons of CO₂ per year compared to the use of grey ammonia.

Successful at first auction of European hydrogen bank

EnBW entered into a cooperation with its Norwegian partner FUELLA in 2023 and contributed a 10% equity stake in order to support the investment decision and secure exclusive rights to long-term purchase agreements. The importance of SkiGA’s competitive position was recently demonstrated by the European hydrogen bank’s first auction: The project was one of seven to receive a grant.

Also see: CO2 – Off to sea

Peter Heydecker, EnBW Board Member for Sustainable Generation Infrastructure, emphasizes the importance of the cooperation with FUELLA: “We are very pleased that we have found a partner in Norway in FUELLA to jointly gain important experience in the development and upscaling of a green gas infrastructure. The quantities of green ammonia secured for EnBW give us a good starting position in the market ramp-up and mark a further step on the way to a carbon-free energy supply.“

Background

Ammonia is also a means of transporting hydrogen, as it can be converted back into hydrogen using the “cracking” process. Compared to hydrogen, ammonia has the advantage that the market and logistics are already available and well established.

Also interesting: Europe`s largest green hydrogen plant operational

Ammonia is one of the most frequently produced and transported chemicals in the world. It is used in fertilizer production, as a chemical feedstock and as a low-carbon fuel.
The production of gray ammonia causes more than 1% of global CO₂ emissions. Compared to grey ammonia, green ammonia avoids 2.4 tons of CO₂ per ton of ammonia and is therefore an ideal CO₂-neutral fuel. (hcn)

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Solar Energy

Nordics – E-car boom in Norway

July 23, 2024 ryansheehanrts

While sales of electric cars are currently rather sluggish in Germany, the picture is different in Norway: around 84 percent of new cars registered on Norwegian roads in the first half of 2024 (new cars and imported used cars) were electric cars. This is according to statistics from Statistics Norway (SSB).

E-cars catch up with petrol cars

This means 2024 could be another record year. In 2023, the proportion of newly registered e-cars in Norway was 82% – higher than ever before. Around 732,000 electric cars are currently on the roads in the Scandinavian country. It is expected that more electric cars will be registered in Norway than petrol cars from September – this is unique in the world. Only the Norwegian diesel fleet, with around one million, is still slightly out of reach.

With a market share of around 17 percent in the first half of 2024, Tesla is at the top of Norwegian new car sales, with the Model Y being particularly popular. With a market share of around 11 percent, Volkswagen also makes it into the Norwegian top 3 after Toyota. VW’s best-selling car is the ID.4.

Reasons for the Norwegian e-boom

But how can the continuing popularity of electric cars in Norway be explained? What do the Scandinavians do differently to the Germans? For one thing, the Norwegian government has long provided strong incentives for electric cars. For example, there were major concessions and tax breaks for electric cars, lower parking fees and permission to drive in bus and cab lanes. Some of these measures were withdrawn, but the e-cars remained.

According to Michael Kern, Managing Director of the German-Norwegian Chamber of Commerce (AHK Norway), the dense public charging network, which extends to the remote regions of Norway, also plays a role: “Such growth in e-mobility requires that the charging infrastructure keeps pace with the sales of electric cars – and does not become an obstacle to their introduction,” he says.

Fast-charging stations, which enable efficient and time-saving charging on the move, are particularly relevant here. In Norway, there were 7741 of these at the end of 2023 (in June 2024 there were 8550); Germany, with a population around 15 times larger, had 25,233 on January 1, 2024.

Read more about e-mobility

However, Kern points out that direct comparisons between countries are often difficult. “In Germany, for example, there are completely different market conditions that influence consumers when buying a car.” As far as the switch to electromobility is concerned, Norway also has favorable conditions – apart from the cold winter: “In addition to the smaller population, the country has a more manageable and less complex infrastructure that needs to be adapted. In addition, Norway has always generated well over 90 percent of its electrical energy from renewable sources – so electric cars have always been able to fully exploit their environmental advantage here.“

Reduced fees for grid-friendly charging

The grid operator Norgesnett, in collaboration with the software company Volue, recently started offering reduced grid charges for electricity customers who charge their electric cars in a grid-friendly way. “We are all in favor of the green transition, but for us as a grid operator, solar roofs and electric cars are also a challenge. When a lot of solar power from private homes flows into the grid on sunny days and more and more people charge their electric cars at night, this leads to an increasing load on the local grid,” says Vidar Kristoffersen, CEO of Norgesnett, which has around 100,000 grid customers.

The main motive behind the new eNabo service is therefore to facilitate the feed-in of more and more solar power from rooftops and the increased use of electric cars without having to increase grid charges to finance a massive grid expansion.

“Many of us have developed a relationship with smart charging of electric cars, i.e. charging at times when electricity is cheapest on the spot market, usually at night. The problem with this first-generation smart charging is that it does not take into account the load on the local power grid. It is not “grid intelligent”. That is the element we are now introducing together with Norgesnett,” says Kjetil Storset, who heads the ‘Neighborhood Systems’ initiative at Volue.

Offer for regions with particularly strained networks

In practice, the system is managed by service providers who offer smart charging. The service will be offered in areas where the grid is considered to be particularly congested. These are initially around 130 districts, the number of which will increase with the expansion of solar power generation. End customers who decide to participate in the program will receive an additional note from Norgesnett on their electricity bill showing the offset. This applies regardless of which electricity supplier they purchase their electricity from.

Also interesting: Norway – First large solar park connected to the grid

With the new system, the grid operator receives continuously updated forecasts of generation, consumption and bottlenecks in the local electricity grid for the coming days.
“This is a good start and one of several tools we need to develop more solar energy in Norway,” says Trine Kopstad Berentsen, CEO of the Solar Energy Cluster. (hcn)

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