Floating photovoltaics may significantly reduce water evaporation at Aswan dam
The Aswan High Dam Reservoir is one of the world’s largest water reservoir and suffers from high water evaporation rates due to the region’s very hot and dry climate. Floating PV installations may be a remedy, while also offering a good match for hydropower generation.
Enerack releases mounting legs for east-west PV systems
China’s Enerack says its new mounting legs are designed for 10-degree or 15-degree tilt angles. They are made of AL6005-T5 aluminum alloy and ethylene propylene diene monomer (EPDM), with a 304 stainless steel clamp.
Using commercially available inverters for daylight photoluminescence imaging
An Australian research group has used an SMA inverter to switch the operating point of a PV array and has demonstrated its ability to create photoluminescence images for both rooftop and large scale solar installations.
Schneider Electric launches new storage systems for microgrids
The France-based group said its has released two new BESSs with enclosures of 7ft and 20ft. Their power ranges from 60 kW to 500 kW.
PV module fault detection technique based on convolutional neural network
An international research team has used the convolutional neural network (CNN) deep learning algorithm to identify faults in solar panels. Its work showed the proposed technique has a high degree of accuracy, especially if combined with transfer learning models.
Reducing photovoltaic-thermal module temperature with iron, copper oxide
An international research team has proposed using iron oxide and copper oxide to lower photovoltaic-thermal (PVT) solar module temperature. Their analysis showed that the two compounds were able to lower the panels’ operating temperature by 23.49% and 34.58% respectively.
Chemitek offers new cleaning products for floating PV
Chemitek has developed new cleaning products for floating PV arrays. The Portuguese company says it has tested and confirmed them to be safe for animals and vegetation around such systems.
Solar-assisted heat pumps vs. air-source heat pumps
A group of researchers in Iran has analyzed the coefficient of performance and the energy consumption of a solar-assisted heat pumps and an air-source heat pumps and has found that three factors are crucial to determine their annual performance – irradiance changes, ambient temperature, and wind speed.
Solar forecasting based on all sky imaging, long short-term memory
A Dutch research team have developed a solar radiation forecasting model that uses the long short-term memory (LSTM) technique. The proposed methodology reportedly achieves better results than other forecasting approaches.
South Korea plans 120 GW space solar project
Two Korean research institutes are designing the 2.2 km × 2.7 km Korean Space Solar Power Satellite project with the aim of providing approximately 1 TWh of electricity to the Earth per year. The proposed system should use 4,000 sub-solar arrays of 10 m × 270 m, made out of thin film roll-out, with a system power efficiency of 13.5%.
