Greenbuddies Tips – October 2022
16 MWp PV project in Italy completed
In recent weeks, a project with a total installed capacity of 16 MWp has been completed near the ancient Italian town of Ferrara, located between Venice and Bologna.
This project entailed a highly complex Axone Duo tracker design from PVH, which rotates during the day to follow the sun, maximising both energy and monetary gain for the customer. Our team took care of the mechanical and electrical installation, including ramming and assembling the structure with PV modules, cabling, and grounding.
Newly finished freefield project in Italy
One of the difficult tasks was measuring the structure’s minimum deflection, which had to be measured with a laser. To give you an indication of the operation, on a 56-meter tracker, the tolerance was 1 cm, which is also the measurable limit by laser. More than a hundred workers rotated with the work during the project, depending on the current activity and specialisation. All this while often having to deal with high temperatures of around 40°C in the shade for the 3 months of installation.
As this was a pilot Greenbuddies project, in the beginning, we faced many administrative hurdles. However, in dealing with them we gained experience that will be very useful to us in the future. We believe that this collaboration with a challenging client has prepared us perfectly for working on the next seven projects starting in Italy, and we hope to increase this number in the future!
Possibilities of use of hydrogen in the automotive industry
In this edition of our Greenbuddies Tips, we would like to follow up on the topic of using hydrogen as an alternative energy source with the potential use of hydrogen in the automotive industry. Although it is technologically possible for a car to burn hydrogen in the same way that models run on liquefied propane-butane (LPG) or liquefied or compressed natural gas (LNG, CNG) do, none of the mass-produced prototypes has achieved this.
There is no pure hydrogen car on the market today as today’s hydrogen cars are hybrids. They have fuel cells which, by combining hydrogen from a tank with oxygen in the air, produce electricity (the waste product is only water vapour). This is partly used to power the vehicle at times of light load and the rest is stored in a built-in battery; when more power is required (starting, overtaking), the missing energy is supplied by the battery. It is not worth installing more powerful fuel cells to cover peak consumption due to their size and weight.
Hydrogen propulsion has yet to make significant inroads into passenger transportation, with German physicist Patrick Plötz of the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems Research and Innovation telling Nature Electronics magazine that hydrogen is too late for any road transport. The West’s drive to rapidly achieve climate-neutral transport is leading to a preference for existing technologies that promise to achieve this goal within a few decades. In passenger transport, it is no longer expected that hydrogen technology can catch up with electric cars if the Paris Agreement commitments are to be met. If hydrogen trucks are not in series production within a few years, he is also sceptical about freight transport.
Illustrative photo, Source: news.heraldcorp.com
However, the situation is different in other sectors such as aviation, industry, or shipping. Japan’s largest railway company, East Japan Railway, is testing its first hydrogen train, which is expected to go into commercial service in 2030. Development is being carried out in collaboration with Toyota, whose task it will be to supply the fuel cells, and Hitachi, which will supply the propulsion system. Hydrogen trains are already running in Germany. In Lower Saxony, they have replaced fifteen diesel trains. Alstrom’s Coradia iLint hydrogen trains have a range of 1,000 km and are capable of a top speed of 140 km/h.
At September’s UK DroneX trade fair, he outlined further possibilities. The Israeli firm Gadfin unveiled a delivery drone using hydrogen fuel cells. With the higher energy density of hydrogen versus lithium-based batteries, it allows for a range of up to 250 kilometres and is expected to find use in linking hospitals in the Cambridge area as well as transporting vital medical supplies faster than cars, especially at peak times.
A kilogram of hydrogen contains approximately 66 kWh of energy, while lithium polymer batteries have a maximum energy density of 0.14 kWh/kg. ISS Aerospace, an English company that uses drones loaded with various sensors to collect cartographic and other data, reports that when using hydrogen cells, the drone can stay in the air two to three times longer and thus cover a larger area.
Source: Video: Drony na vodík z výstavy novinek jsou lehčí, obratnější a doletí dále – Seznam Zprávy (seznamzpravy.cz)
Dává vodíkový pohon smysl? Nebo je budoucností elektromobilita? | fDrive.cz
Vodíkový pohon prohrál. Do aut ani náklaďáků se už neprosadí, tvrdí expert – Seznam Zprávy (seznamzpravy.cz)
V Japonsku chtějí vyrábět vodík z použitého plastu (hybrid.cz)
Greenbuddies became ISO 14001 certified
In the January issue of our newsletter, we told you about our plans to obtain the ISO 14001 certification, which is an important tool for managing the environmental impact of a company’s activities. We are very pleased to tell you that this month we have met all the requirements for this certification and have become a legal holder of ISO 14001:2016.
The development of Greenbuddies is based on the harmonious alignment of economic growth, social justice, and environmental protection, i.e., on the principles of sustainable development. All our employees are aware of their responsibility towards future generations.
Greenbuddies project in Netherlands
Our goal is to minimise the consumption of materials and raw materials to the level set by technical standards and regulations so that unnecessary waste, including energy and fuel, is avoided. We strive to make the activities we carry out as environmentally friendly as possible. Contractors are familiar with the principles of process optimisation and the requirements for machinery (e.g. electrically powered) and waste management. In order to further reduce environmental burdens, vehicles are serviced at set intervals and times to minimise harmful emissions into the air, Noise is limited to an acceptable level and leakages of operating fluids are prevented – especially oil. All our employees are involved in the process of reducing the production of pollutants (emissions and waste).
The environmental register is one of the sources for determining our company’s environmental profile and is continuously updated and evaluated. At the same time, we have introduced an Environmental Management Directive, the purpose of which is to also bring all the company’s activities into line with the requirements of applicable laws and related regulations in the field of environmental protection. Specifically, in the areas of air protection, water management, waste management, etc.
Internal audits are carried out to check compliance with the defined principles in all organisational units of the company that are included in the integrated management system.
It is well known that Greenbuddies has already obtained several ISO certifications in previous years. In 2018, we focused on our quality management system and met the requirements for the ISO 9001:2015 standard. In January 2021, we, as a company, focused on occupational health and safety and became ISO 45001:2018 certified, replacing the original OHSAS 18001 standard.
We believe that by continuously improving our internal processes, we will become a stronger player with a favourable market position.
