Freesuns brings PV to Swiss heritage buildings
Swiss module manufacturer Freesuns has installed 33,300 of its solar roof tiles on three historical buildings in the Swiss town of Neuchâtel.
Japan’s Toyo plans 2 GW solar cell factory in Ethiopia
Tokyo-based Toyo Co. says it will invest $60 million in a new 2 GW solar cell factory in Ethiopia, to mostly serve the US market.
Sweden’s first large-scale agrivoltaic park inaugurated
Production is now underway at Sweden’s first large-scale agrivoltaics park, owned and operated by Svea Solar. A power purchase agreement is in place with a local vertical farmer for the electricity produced, while the farm underneath the solar panels will produce rapeseed, ley and wheat on a rotational basis.
TNO researchers build world’s first bifacial PV window
The new multifunctional PV window concept aims to produce electricity while providing over-heating protection for better indoor thermal and visual comfort. It consists of an insulating glazing unit with bifacial crystalline silicon solar cells strips and embedded venetian blinds that act as reflectors for the rear side of the cells.
Organic PV module based on ultra-narrow interconnections achieves record-breaking efficiency of 16.1%
New research from China shows that ultra-narrow interconnections may considerably improve organic PV performance. The scientists built a 11.08 cm2 panel with an impressive geometric fill factor of 98%.
France’s Carbon involved in patent case with JA Solar
France-based PV manufacturer Carbon is currently involved in patent proceedings with JA Solar over tunneling silicon oxide (SiO2) layers, doped polysilicon layers, and electrodes in tunnel oxide passivated contact (TOPCon) solar products.
PV fault detection method based on deep learning of aerial images
Conceived an international research group, the proposed model uses the convolutional neural network (CNN) architecture U-Net for image segmentation and the the CNN architecture InceptionV3-Net for fault classification.
Chinese PV Industry Brief: China Resources finalizes PV module tender
China Resources Power has finalized its 1 GW module procurement for 2024 with Astronergy, while China Power Construction has secured 1.5 GW of n-type heterojunction (HJT) modules through a separate tender.
Japan’s oldest PV system gets refurbished
Tokyo-based startup Girasol Energy and the enterprise bureau of Japan’s Yamanashi prefecture have repowered Japan’s oldest PV system, a 100 kW array built in 1993. The project aimed to partially replace the original 13.3% efficient solar modules, offering an alternative to dismantling and recycling the system’s components.
Vertical agrivoltaics for barley
Researchers in Sweden have measured barney yield in a vertical agrivoltaic facility and have found that despite the shade created by the modules the yields are comparable to open-field control conditions, if not slightly higher. Their methodology can be replicated for other sites and crops.
