POWER Digest [September 2024]

Investment Fund Buys Spanish Solar Projects. NextEnergy Capital, an investment fund focused on renewable energy, in August said it had an agreement to buy 12 solar power projects in Spain. The installations in total represent 248 MW of generation capacity. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. The investment was made from NextEnergy’s NextPower V ESG fund. The company also said it was looking to purchase more projects in Spain, with “multiple additional projects under advanced negotiation in the region,” according to a company director.

Automaker Develops Energy Storage System from Used EV Batteries. German carmaker Porsche AG recently announced development of a 5-MW energy storage system (ESS) at the group’s factory in Leipzig, Germany. The ESS is comprised of 4,400 individual battery modules formerly used to power electric vehicles. The ESS is divided into four battery containers. Porsche said the system, build from used Taycan batteries, should have a lifecycle of more than 10 years. The group also said individual battery modules can be replaced if necessary. Officials said energy for the ESS is partly generated by the factory’s onsite solar power array.

China Group Approves Pilot Geothermal Projects in Oilfields. China National Petroleum Corp. (Sinopec) in August approved pilot projects for geothermal heating in the Xianghe County and Dachang Hui Autonomous County of the Dagang Oilfield in China. Officials said the two projects would represent Sinopec’s largest geothermal heating cluster in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region. The Dagang Oilfield is considered one of the top areas eyed for geothermal development under the renewable energy strategy announced by PetroChina, which is part of Sinopec. The company has estimated it can develop geothermal resources of up to 1.6 billion metric tons of coal equivalent within their 15 oilfields. The projects are part of the “New Energy Business Cooperation Agreement” signed between the two counties earlier this year. That agreement is designed to support establishment of pilot projects for clean energy, such as geothermal heating and waste heat utilization. Ultimately, the goal is to develop clean energy to replace coal and gas heating.

—Darrell Proctor is senior editor for POWER.