Technology

Powerchina has switched on a 100 MW solar tower in South Africa. The concentrated solar power (CSP) project will supply 480 GWh of clean energy to the country’s power grid each year. The system’s molten salt storage enables 12 hours of full-load operation.

The German research institute said it utilized a hybrid manufacturing route to deposit the perovskite solar on the cell’s top PV device based on an industrially textured silicon heterojunction technology. For the bottom subcell, a standard silicon solar cell was used.

The Italian manufacturer said the its new polyvalent reversible heat pump has a seasonal coefficient of performance of 4.44 to 4.59 and a seasonal energy efficiency ratio of 7.72 to 7.53. It can reportedly achieve a flow temperature of up to 55 C.

Scientists in Spain have created a semi-online technique to predict solar irradiance at different locations inside a photovoltaic plant. The proposed training approach is described as suitable for highly variable time series forecasting.

The latest irradiance sensor solution from Japan-based EKO Instruments provides continuous measurements in the field. Well-suited for bifacial PV systems, it supports the measurement of global horizontal irradiance, diffuse horizontal irradiance and direct normal irradiance, even in reflective and cloudy conditions.

The KGAL ESPF 6 Energy Transition Fund says it is investing in a 1,050 MW green hydrogen hub at Lubmin, a Baltic Sea port in Germany.

China-based Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. (CATL) has launched a new 376 kW/752 kWh product expanding its TENER energy storage series in response to logistics and geospatial challenges facing energy storage products in Europe. The new solution integrates with both string and central inverters, meeting the needs of both large-scale commericial and industrial as well as distributed generation applications.

Trina Solar claims it has developed the world’s first “fully recyclable” 645 W PV module with 20.7% efficiency. It made the panel with interlayer separation reagents, chemical etching technology, and wet chemical silver extraction tech.

Germany’s Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems (Fraunhofer ISE) is developing “easy-to-use and reproducible” propane heat pumps to replace fossil fuel systems in multi-family homes, while exploring modernization options for various residential building types.

Sharp’s new IEC61215- and IEC61730-certified solar panels have an operating temperature coefficient of -0.29% per C and a bifaciality factor of over 80%.