Research & Development
Solar R&D is focused on improving efficiency, reducing production costs, and extending system longevity. Key areas include tandem and perovskite cell development, advanced materials for encapsulation and contacts, and new concepts in system integration.
Simulation tools, AI-driven design, and accelerated testing methods are expanding research capabilities. Sustainability and circularity targets are increasingly embedded in innovation strategies.
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Great Power successfully completes full-scale fire test
Great Power has completed a full-scale fire test of its 5 MWh energy storage system, with no fire propagation to adjacent containers, no structural collapse, and no thermal runaway observed in any adjacent module.
New optimization method improves heat pump sizing by accounting for part-load efficiency
Austrian researchers have developed an optimization framework that accounts for part-load efficiency when sizing and operating heat pumps, enabling more realistic system planning. A case study in Innsbruck found the approach could cut electricity consumption by 4.5% and annual costs by 2.9%, while relaxed formulations significantly reduced computation times.
Satellite tech sharpens fire and grazing management at Australian solar farm
Researchers from the CSIRO and Macquarie University are utilizing satellite-based remote sensing and AI to balance fire risk and insurance demands with livestock grazing at one of the largest operating solar farms in Australia.
Optimized semi-transparent PV greenhouse design increases energy output by 20.1%
An international research team has developed an optimized semi-transparent PV greenhouse design that increases solar electricity generation by strategically allocating PV surfaces to south-facing roofs and walls. Using an improved optimization algorithm, the design increased annual energy output by 20.1% and outperformed conventional greenhouse geometries by up to 56.86%.
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Air-source heat pumps with thermal storage cut upfront costs by 29.7%
Chinese researchers have proposed combining air-source heat pumps with thermal energy storage to shift electricity consumption to off-peak periods and reduce system costs. The system cut upfront investment by 29.7%, annual electricity use by 21.9 MWh, and carbon emissions by 8.8% compared with conventional counterparts.
CIMC Raffles developing bamboo-based offshore floating photovoltaics
CIMC Raffles has completed a 100 kW bamboo-based offshore floating PV platform in Yantai, China, using engineered bamboo composites as structural materials. The company plans to scale the technology to megawatt-level projects while developing standards and additional marine applications.
Heat pump-Carnot battery system for residential PV storage
Italian researchers have developed a reversible heat pump-ORC Carnot battery that stores surplus residential PV electricity as heat and converts it back into electricity when needed. Simulations showed that optimizing the ORC expander speed could raise round-trip efficiency to 35%, while enabling the system to meet the modeled household’s daily electricity demand.
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New subcell current metrology for perovskite-silicon tandem solar cells
Fraunhofer ISE researchers developed a millisecond-scale electrical method to separately measure perovskite and silicon subcell currents in tandem solar cells using the silicon cell’s capacitive charge reservoir. The approach can be integrated into standard j–V testing without additional hardware, potentially enabling inline subcell current monitoring in mass production.
Italian scientists build glass-free flexible silicon PV modules via roll-to-roll
Researchers have developed a glass-free flexible crystalline-silicon module architecture based on commercial IBC cells and a PET/EVA stack manufactured via roll-to-roll hot lamination. The 2 × 2 mini-module retained 96.12% of its initial efficiency after 672 hours of outdoor testing at a fixed bending radius of 150 mm.
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AZO-based HJT solar cells more vulnerable to damp-heat-induced degradation, study finds
German researchers have found that aluminum-doped zinc oxide-based silicon heterojunction cells are more vulnerable to damp-heat-induced degradation than their indium tin oxide-based counterparts. To address this issue, they introduced a magnesium fluoride capping layer that significantly improved damp-heat stability by slowing moisture penetration and corrosion.
New temperature model improves floating PV performance predictions
Researchers in Malaysia have developed a simplified operating cell temperature model for floating photovoltaic (FPV) systems that incorporates water temperature while remaining compatible with existing nominal operating cell temperature (NOCT) models. The FPV-NOCT model outperformed the standard NOCT approach in validation datasets from Brazil and California, achieving up to 92.3% prediction accuracy.
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