Here are some noteworthy cleantech announcements of the day from around the world:

Cleantech Solar commissioned a 2.6 MW rooftop solar photovoltaic project at the manufacturing facility of Exide Industries’ wholly-owned subsidiary, Chloride Metals, in Haldia, West Bengal. The long-term solar partnership between Cleantech Solar and Chloride Metals Limited is expected to generate approximately 76.8 GWh of clean energy during the project’s lifetime, reducing over 70 kilotons of carbon emissions. Cleantech Solar financed, designed, and constructed the fully operational solar photovoltaic project. It will also be operated and maintained by Cleantech Solar.

MG Motor India and Castrol India announced a partnership with Jio-bp to explore setting up a four-wheeler electric vehicle (EV) charging infrastructure and expanding Castrol’s existing Auto Service network to cater to EV Customers. With the Jio-bp pulse mobile app, customers can easily find charging stations nearby and seamlessly charge their EVs. Castrol is expected to develop and expand its existing multi-brand auto service network and express oil change centers to start serving four-wheeler electric cars. These services will be offered across India at both Jio-bp mobility stations and select Castrol Auto Service workshops to serve EV and non-EV four-wheelers. Castrol will help set up EV charging infrastructure across its Auto Service network. Castrol will leverage its access to a vast pool of car mechanics and offer them specialized EV training and certification.

LG Energy Solution (LGES) announced partnering with academic organizations in Germany to expand its joint battery research programs. The company will be working with Münster Electrochemical Energy Technology (MEET) of the University of Münster and Helmholtz Institute Münster (HI MS) of Forschungszentrum Jülich. These institutions will participate in a joint battery research program funded by LGES’s Frontier Research Laboratory (FRL). Researchers from all three parties will be working on research for the next-generation lithium-ion battery technology using green materials and processes. In particular, the joint research team will be looking into ways to boost battery cell performance, including its energy density and cycle life.

Sharp Corporation announced that it had achieved a conversion efficiency of 32.65% in a lightweight, a flexible, practically sized solar module developed as part of the “Research and Development of Solar Cells for Use in Vehicles” project, which is administered by the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO) of Japan. The module’s conversion efficiency beat the efficiency of a similar Sharp module developed under another NEDO project in 2016, which recorded efficiency of 31.17%, at the time a world record. The company claimed that the new prototype solar module, which uses a triple-junction compound design, is lightweight and flexible because of its structure. It sandwiches the solar cell between layers of film. As a result, the module is expected to be used in a variety of vehicles, an application that demands high efficiency and lightweight construction.