Emiliano Bellini
Heat pumps bankable as incentive-free solutions in many applications
Two Italian experts on heat pumps and PV systems recently spoke to pv magazine about economies of scale, the European market, and the maturity of heating tech. The Eurac researchers said currently available heat pumps can run at -20 C and efficiently provide hot water up to 65 C.
NASA developing 10 kW movable PV array for moon mission
NASA plans to place a solar array on a tall mast to avoid lunar shading and capture uninterrupted light. It will hang a pair of PV cell blankets from a horizontal cross arm supported by the mast, anchored to a deployable tripod base.
Belgium’s Flanders region allocates 33 MW of PV in first renewables auction
The procurement exercise’s final prices for the PV source ranged from €0.0321 to €0.15 per kWh. The next auction will be held in September.
South Africa installed 1.3 GW of PV last year
Around 800 MW of last year’s new additions came from ground-mounted solar plants, and the remaining 500 MW from distributed generation.
Sunseap announces 2.2 GW floating PV project at Indonesian water reservoir
If built, the project would be the world’s largest floating PV power plant and would reach the same capacity as the largest ground-mounted facility currently in operation.
New tech may bring heterojunction solar cells based on p-type wafers closer to mass production
An Australian-Russian research group has developed a silicon heterojunction solar cell based on p-type gallium-doped wafers with an efficiency of 22.6% and an improved stability. The scientists are convinced that these wafers may become a mainstream solution for the SHJ segment within the next decade.
South Korea allocates 2 GW in PV tender, final average price drops to $0.118/kWh
Selected projects will be awarded a fixed rate under a 20-year contract under the country’s renewable energy certificate (REC) scheme and will sell electricity to local power distributors.
Testing field for PV noise barriers
Two testing facilities for photovoltaic noise barriers are being built by a Belgian consortium. Their creators want to assess different PV technologies, reduce costs and plan large scale projects in Belgium, where land and policy constraints make the construction of ground-mounted PV plants almost impossible.
Another 70 MW of floating solar goes online in the Netherlands
BayWa re commissioned two floating PV facilities which it claims are the largest in Europe and outside Asia.
Solar module for floating PV from Hyundai
The bifacial panel has a power output of up to 485 W and an efficiency of up to 21%. It relies on a transparent backsheet and is encapsulated with polyolefin elastomer (POE).
