Modules & Upstream Manufacturing

Germany’s Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy (ISE) has advanced vehicle-integrated PV (VIPV) technology by installing solar cells directly onto a standard sheet-metal car hood. The researchers placed a 115 W prototype array on the hood of a Volkswagen with a specialized lamination process.

A group of researchers from Italy investigated the economic competitiveness of various ground mounted and floating PV systems with regard to cost and performance, taking into consideration revenues due to reduced water evaporations. They found that the use of non-evaporated water at photovoltaic system sites can achieve revenues greater than $3/kW if used for irrigation and higher than $4/kW if sold to generate hydroelectricity.

Slenergy, a Chinese electronics manufacturer, has developed a new balcony PV system featuring two 425 W all-black solar panels, an 800 W microinverter, and a mounting structure. It includes a set equipped with a 5-meter AC cable, a 3-meter DC cable, and a 3P connector.

Scientists in Australia claim to have achieved the highest efficiency ever reported to date for a perovskite solar cell built on a steel substrate. They utilized an indium tin oxide (ITO) interlayer between the steel substrate and the cell in order to avoid iron diffusion from the substrate into the PV device.

Although raw material costs in China are slowly stabilizing again, PV module prices continue to decline, as inventory levels remain very high.

Astronergy says it plans to build one of the world’s largest announced offshore PV projects, while Longi says it is expanding its cell capacity in Leshan, Sichuan province.

Saudi scientists created a new deep learning technique based on distributionally robust optimization (DRO) to identify the most suitable locations for utility scale wind and solar power projects. They applied the model to Saudi Arabia and found it provides ‘more realistic’ results than deterministic or robust models.

A spokesperson from the Japanese plastics maker told pv magazine that production is currently being carried out at a small facility in the laboratory, and that the location of a full-scale production facility is currently under consideration.

A UK research team has developed a photovoltaic leaf concept that can produce electricity, water and thermal energy in a single device. The system, inspired by a leaf, is based on a biomimetic transpiration (BT) layer that cools down the embedded PV unit and utilizes excess heat from the cell to produce water and heat energy.

Heckert Solar, Wattkraft and Interfloat are planning to invest around €2 billion ($2.18 billion) in three different manufacturing facilities that will produce everything from polysilicon to solar modules.