Alternative energy

Slovenia's largest solar power plant has been launched. Built for €5.5 million adjacent to the Brežice hydropower plant, it has a peak power of 6 MW, enough to meet the electricity needs of about 1,800 households.

What makes it special alongside its size is that it is connected directly to the 110 kilovolt transmission network and forms a hybrid system with the hydropower plant.

An apricot producer in the eastern province of Malatya meets the power needs of his agricultural land with the electricity from solar panels he installed three years ago at a cost of 100 Turkish Liras.

While increasing energy costs lead citizens to alternative sources, interest in solar panels is increasing each day.

The Agriculture and Forestry Ministry is working on projects aimed at utilizing geothermal energy resources, particularly in urban agriculture, while officials are looking into ways to boost biomass production in rural areas.

The ministry favors the specialized greenhouse-organized industrial zones based on geothermal heating (TDİOSB) as the more appropriate model.

The issue of storing electricity from renewable energy sources in Cyprus has become a problem due to extensive production rejections of both large and small photovoltaic parks by the Transmission and Distribution Operators on Easter Sunday and Monday. This has resulted in economic losses as excess energy cannot be stored and is rejected.

The Energy Market Regulatory Board has granted preliminary licenses to solar and wind energy power plants to increase the storage capacity further, making an investment of approximately $3 billion.

Within the scope of a new project by the Agriculture and Forestry Ministry, which will both increase renewable energy production and protect agricultural lands, floating solar panels will be placed on stagnant water surfaces such as dams and ponds.

Mytilineos Energy & Metals and Compagnie de Saint-Gobain on Thursday announced the signing of a private wire power purchase agreement (PPA) relating to the energy generated from a 4.9-megawatt solar farm in Italy.

The solar power plant will reach commercial operation in mid-2023 and it will be built on the premises of Saint-Gobain's historical factory in Vidalengo, Bergamo.

Shipping companies are still waiting for "real green" fuel solutions as part of decarbonization efforts to clean up the industry, a leading industry official said.

Shipping, which transports around 90% of world trade and accounts for nearly 3% of the world's CO2 emissions, is under growing pressure from environmentalists to deliver more concrete action, including a carbon levy.

Slovenia will soon get a pilot geothermal power station at an abandoned natural gas well in the Lendava area in north-east of the country. Valued at €1.2 million, the plant is to generate 400 megawatt hours of electricity per year.

Wind and solar power plants will be installed on a total of 300 million square meters of idle treasury lands, Environment, Urbanization and Climate Change Minister Murat Kurum has said.