Technology and R&D

UV Energy has developed a PV system that can be used in parking lots and on other surfaces. It claims that the arrays can be deployed within time frames of three to six weeks.

Zentrum für Sonnenenergie- und Wasserstoff-Forschung Baden-Württemberg (ZSW) and First Solar have agreed to work together to develop thin-film PV technologies on a gigawatt scale.

In a new weekly update for pv magazine, Solcast, a DNV company, reports that dust storms and slear skies led to contrasting March Solar Performance in West Asia. The Arabian Peninsula experienced humid winds and dust storms that reduced solar irradiance to 90% of typical levels for the month.

Spain’s Soltec has developed a new dual-row, single-axis tracker with a tracking range of up to 60 degrees, offering compatibility with 60-cell, 72-cell and 78-cell modules.

An Austrian team develped a model to optimize lamination parameters and to flag critical, insufficiently crosslinked and inconsistent encapsulant laminations. It could be particularly suitable for the production of double-glass solar panels.

ArcActive, a New Zealand-based battery tech specialist, plans to set up a factory in Australia within 18 months. It says the facility will be able to produce 30,000 lead acid-based residential energy storage systems per year.

An international team has demonstrated a perovskite solar cell relying on inorganic calcium nitrogen iodide (Ca3NI3) perovskite and has found this absorber material offers advantages such as tunable bandgap and resistance to heat. The device achieved a fill factor of 81.68%.

A Chinese research group has sought to understand the relative performance of two weather prediction techniques based on ensemble modeling for solar energy forecasts. The scientists applied the two methods in combination with three classical post-processing methods.

Researchers in China have compared the performance of catenary and taut mooring systems for offshore floating PV systems. They found that the taut system offers a higher degree of reliability in shallow water environments with severe tidal variations.

Scientists in the Netherlands conducted meta-analysis on the growth of strawberries, blueberries, blackberries and blackcurrants under different levels of shade generated by elevated agrivoltaic systems. They found that, although classified as shade-benefitting in previous literature, not all berries are equally profiting from the presence of the photovoltaic panels.