RECPDCL Invites Bids for 223 MW ISTS-Connected Solar Projects

Clean Energy Tech Firm Ecozen Raises $30 Million for Global Expansion

SJVN Green Energy Invites Bids to Source Land for 200 MW Solar Projects in Assam

Avaada Inks ₹45 Billion Refinancing Deal for Four Solar Projects in Rajasthan

Daily News Wrap-Up: Application Process for ALMM Inclusion and Renewal

Australia Adds 5.9 GW of Renewable Capacity to the Grid in 2023

POWERGRID Wins Contracts to Evacuate 18 GW of Renewable Energy

MNRE Seeks Feedback on Guidelines for PM-Surya Ghar Rooftop Solar Program

Apple Partners with CleanMax to Power India Operations with Renewable Energy

Explainer: Application Process for ALMM Inclusion and Renewal


					<table id="amazon-polly-audio-table">
						<tr>
						<td id="amazon-polly-audio-tab">
							<div id="amazon-ai-player-label">Listen to this article</div>
							<div id="amazon-ai-player-container">
			<audio class="amazon-ai-player" id="amazon-ai-player" preload="none" controls   controlsList="nodownload" >
				<source type="audio/mpeg" src="http://mercomindia.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/amazon_polly_45399.mp3?version=1669638873">
			</audio>
		</div>
							<div id="amazon-polly-subscribe-tab"></div>
							<div id="amazon-polly-by-tab"></div>
						</td>
						</tr>
					</table><p><a href="https://www.gov.ie/en/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Ireland</a>&#8216;s government will make it mandatory for the heat sector to include a share of renewable energy in their services by 2024.</p>
<p>Currently, the country&#8217;s heating sector is substantially behind the European Union average in meeting heating needs from renewable energy.</p>
<p>&#8220;Ireland&#8217;s renewable energy share in the heat sector last year was 6.8%, compared to the European Union average of 22%,&#8221; the Ireland government said.</p>
<p>It added that while progress is being made, with an increase of half a percentage point on the previous year, significant action is needed to transform the energy sector to a high-renewable, low-carbon system on a pathway to net zero emissions by 2050.</p>
<p>The Department of the Environment, Climate, and Communications will now carry out a detailed study, which will be the basis for a final program. The government will then propose a share for renewable obligation, scalability, and costs to the consumers.</p>
<p>The government expects to undertake a technical consultation in Q1 2023 to inform the scheme&#8217;s final design.</p>
<p>&#8220;The obligation will further incentivize suppliers of all fuels in the heat sector to ensure that a certain proportion of the energy supplied is renewable,&#8221; the government said.</p>
<p><strong>Previous public consultation</strong></p>
<p>The country debated this issue in 2021 and received a total of 50 submissions from a wide range of stakeholders, including members of the public and industry groups.</p>
<p>As much as 76% of respondents agreed that a renewable heat obligation (RHO) should be introduced.</p>
<p>Respondents also called for the RHO to be implemented in parallel with existing government initiatives while highlighting the need for a considerable level of market maturity to support the successful implementation of the scheme</p>
<p>Further, the consultation revealed the suitability of indigenously produced renewable energy for RHO as it would have lower emissions associated with transmissions.</p>
<p><strong>National heat study</strong></p>
<p>The National Heat Study, published by the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (<a href="https://www.seai.ie/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">SEAI</a>) in February 2022, pointed out that heat-related carbon emissions were rising.</p>
<p>Further, it said that while Ireland aims to cut economy-wide emissions by 51% from 2018 levels by 2030, the current Climate Action Plan measures are unlikely to deliver enough heat-related CO2 cuts to meet a proportional share.</p>
<p>Additionally, the study completed an extensive spatial analysis to estimate the availability and production costs of bioenergy resources in Ireland.</p>
<p>It highlighted that significant resources could be achieved by cultivating energy crops, including grass, for anaerobic digestion and perennial energy crops for combustion and other thermochemical energy production technologies.</p>
<p>The study also indicated biomethane as a competitive, cost-efficient path to achieving climate ambitions.</p>
<p>The government said that when changing the way energy is sourced, it is crucial to avoid negatively impacting Ireland&#8217;s biodiversity, land use, and food security.</p>
<p>Earlier this year, the Ireland government <a href="https://mercomindia.com/ireland-electricity-package-power-bills-annually/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">announced</a> a package listing measures to mitigate the hike in power bills while ensuring a secure power supply to businesses and households in the country.</p>
<p>In June, Ireland&#8217;s state-owned power grid, EirGrid, <a href="https://mercomindia.com/ireland-awards-414-mw-wind-1534-mw-solar-projects/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">released</a> the final results of the auction it conducted to deploy 1.9 GW of clean energy capacity under its Renewable Electricity Support Scheme 2.</p>
<div class="saboxplugin-wrap" itemtype="http://schema.org/Person" itemscope itemprop="author"><div class="saboxplugin-tab"><div class="saboxplugin-gravatar"></div><div class="saboxplugin-authorname"><a href="https://cms.mercomindia.com/author/sumit-jha/" class="vcard author" rel="author"><span class="fn">Sumit Jha</span></a></div><div class="saboxplugin-desc"><div itemprop="description"><div class="designboxt"><img class="alignleft" style="border-radius: 50%;height: 50px;margin-top: -4px;border: 1px solid #00b451" src="https://mercomindia.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Picture2.jpg" width="50" /><strong style="text-decoration: underline">Sumit Jha,</strong> Assistant Managing Editor at Mercom India</div>
<div class="designboxt"><a href="https://mercomindia.com/author/sumit-jha/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">More articles from Sumit Jha.</a></div>
<div class="authorboxn"><img class="alignleft" src="https://mercomindia.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Picture2.jpg" width="102" height="102" /><a href="https://mercomindia.com/author/sumit-jha/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><strong style="color: #00b451">Sumit Jha </strong></a>is the Assistant Managing Editor at Mercom India. Prior to Mercom, Sumit worked as a journalist for over a decade, covering the energy sector for Reuters, CNBC-TV18, Bloomberg TV India, and Financial Express, among others. Sumit holds a diploma in print journalism from the Indian Institute of Mass Communication, Delhi, and a Bachelor of Engineering (B.E) from Manipal Institute of Technology.<a href="https://mercomindia.com/author/sumit-jha/" rel="noopener noreferrer">More articles from Sumit Jha</a></div>
</div></div><div class="clearfix"></div></div></div>

Ireland to Mandate Renewable Energy Share in Heat Sector by 2024

<p>A team of researchers from <a href="https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Lancaster University</a> studying a crystalline material has discovered it can capture solar energy and store it for several months at room temperature and release it on demand as heat.</p>
<p>The team hopes to make further development with the material as there is ample potential to capture solar energy during summers and store it for use during winters.</p>
<p>The research, supported by the Leverhulme Trust, is outlined in the paper ‘Long-Term Solar Energy Storage under Ambient Conditions in a MOF-Based Solid-Solid Phase Change Material,’ by the journal Chemistry of Materials. The team comprises John Griffin, Kieran Griffiths, and Nathan Halcovitch, all from the Lancaster University’s Department of Chemistry.</p>
<p>According to the team, the discovery is vital for heating in off-grid systems or remote locations. The material can also function as an environmentally-friendly supplement to conventional heating in homes and offices.</p>
<p>The team claims that the material could be produced as a thin coating and applied to building surfaces or on car windscreens where the heat stored could de-ice the glass in the cold winters.</p>
<p>The crystalline material is based on a form of ‘metal-organic framework’ (MOF) consisting of a network of metal ions linked by carbon-based molecules to form 3D (three-dimensional) structures. MOFs are porous, vital to form composite materials by hosting other small molecules within their structures.</p>
<p>The research team at Lancaster tested a MOF composite, prepared by a Kyoto University-based research team in Japan known as ‘DMOF1’; the team wondered whether DMOF could be used to store energy not researched earlier.</p>
<p>The MOF pores were filled with azobenzene molecules, which absorb light and act as photoswitches- a type of ‘molecular machine’ that can change shape when an external stimulus, such as light or heat, is applied.</p>
<p>During the tests, the researchers exposed the material to UV light, causing the azobenzene molecules to change shape into a strained configuration inside the MOF pores. This process stores energy like a bent spring stores potential energy. The narrow MOF pores trap the azobenzene molecules in their strained shape, aiding in potential energy storage for long periods at room temperature.</p>
<p>The energy is released when external heat is applied as a trigger to switch its state, which the researchers claim is almost instantaneous. This provides a heat boost which could be used to warm other materials of devices.</p>
<p>Further tests demonstrate that the material can store the energy for at least four months. The extended storage capacity is an exciting aspect of the discovery. It opens up possibilities for cross-seasonal storage since many light-responsive materials switch back within hours or a few days.</p>
<p>The concept of storing solar energy in photoswitches has been studied before. However, previous examples required the photoswitches to be in a liquid. Since the MOF composite is a solid, not a liquid fuel, it’s chemically stable and quickly contained, making it easier to develop coatings or standalone devices.</p>
<p>Dr. John Griffin, senior lecturer in materials chemistry at Lancaster University and joint principal investigator of the study, said: “The material functions a bit like phase change materials, which are used to supply heat in hand warmers. However, while hand warmers need to be heated to recharge them, the nice thing about this material is that it captures ‘free’ energy directly from the sun. It also has no moving or electronic parts, so there are no losses involved in solar energy storage and release. We hope that with further development we will be able to make other materials which store even more energy.”</p>
<p>Although the results were promising for this material’s ability to store energy for long periods, its energy density was modest. The next steps are to research other MOF structures as well as alternative types of crystalline materials with more significant energy storage potential.</p>
<p>Researchers at the National Institute of Technology Kurukshetra recently <a href="https://mercomindia.com/researchers-voltage-fluctuations-solar-storage-systems/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">claimed</a> to have developed a new method to regulate direct current voltage for grid-connected solar photovoltaic plus battery energy storage systems. The researchers explained that power system engineers faced several technical challenges due to the high-penetration of renewable energy into the distributed generations. The voltage level increases due to the active power supply from solar to the distribution system. The issue becomes severe when solar power generation is at its peak during the day time.</p>
<div class="saboxplugin-wrap" itemtype="http://schema.org/Person" itemscope itemprop="author"><div class="saboxplugin-tab"><div class="saboxplugin-gravatar"></div><div class="saboxplugin-authorname"><a href="https://cms.mercomindia.com/author/rahul-nair/" class="vcard author" rel="author"><span class="fn">Rahul Nair</span></a></div><div class="saboxplugin-desc"><div itemprop="description"><p>Rahul is a staff reporter at Mercom India. Before entering the world of renewables, Rahul was head of the Gujarat bureau for The Quint. He has also worked for DNA Ahmedabad and Ahmedabad Mirror. Hailing from a banking and finance background, Rahul has also worked for JP Morgan Chase and State Bank of India. <a href="https://mercomindia.com/author/rahul-nair/" rel="noopener noreferrer">More articles from Rahul Nair.</a></p>
</div></div><div class="clearfix"></div></div></div>

Researchers Discover Material That Could Store Solar Energy for Several Months

heating

Get the most relevant India solar and clean energy news.

RECENT POSTS