Modules & Upstream Manufacturing

Scientists in Finland have developed a new method of assessing the long-term performance of vertical bifacial PV systems in Nordic conditions. The experimental setup consisted of a east-west oriented vertical array equipped with power, temperature, and plane-of-array irradiance sensors, wind speed and global horizontal irradiance sensors, and a weather station.

Belgium’s Innoptus Solar Team was the first car to cross the finish line this week in the 3,000 km Bridgestone World Solar Challenge. The team beat its 2019 winning time by 48 minutes.

Iranian researchers have improved perovskite solar cell efficiency by using a single-walled carbon nanotube as a hole transport layer surrounded by lead sulfide colloidal quantum dots.

A US research group has developed stable emitters for high-temperature applications above 1,800 C, which could improve the efficiency of lab-scale thermophovoltaic systems. The framework showcases the potential to design application-specific metamaterials in high-temperature photonics using optimization and machine learning.

Scientists in Bangladesh designed a cadmium telluride solar cell with upper/top and back contact materials made of aluminum (Al) and nickel (Ni). The device reportedly showed a quantum efficiency of around 100 % at visible wavelengths.

A European group has looked into the soiling impact on PV modules in Oman. They have collected 60 samples, based on season, month and tilt angles.

Land is scarce but water is abundant for the Caribbean’s 700 islands. Solar economy professor Christian Breyer tells pv magazine that the region’s archipelagic makeup is not a drawback but a benefit for renewable energy generation, with the ocean potentially serving as the area’s floating solar PV backbone.

An international research team has built a cooling tech consisting of heat absorber pipes that are thermally connected to the PV module, heat releaser pipes that exchange heat with the water body, a series of connecting pipes, and a coolant reservoir. The system claims to create a continuous fluid flow that dissipates heat from the PV cells to the surroundings.

India’s Loom Solar has launched new bifacial TOPCon solar modules with peak power output of 575 Wp and a front-side conversion efficiency rating of up to 22.3%.

China deployed 128.94 GW of new solar power in the first nine months of 2023, with 15.78 GW added in September, bringing its cumulative capacity to 525 GW, according to the National Energy Administration (NEA).