Technology

GE Vernova has developed a 2,000 V (DC) utility-scale inverter, to be used in a North American pilot operation starting in early 2025. The inverter offers up to 6.0 MVA of output power.

Tandem solar-cell technology featuring silicon has been widely researched but materials such as perovskites, paired with established thin-film solar or with other perovskite cells, are pointing to a new development path.

A Qatari research group has analyzed the performance of polyethylene terephthalate backsheets in real outdoor testing conditions in desert areas and has identified the main causes that lead to degradation. These include prolonged exposure to high ultraviolet radiation, high operating temperature cycling, and relative humidity.

Authors of the World Nuclear Industry Status Report 2024 the world had 408 operational reactors producing 367 GW in the middle of the year, which is significantly less than installed capacity predictions for solar by the end of the year and five time less the world’s cumulative PV capacity, which is now approaching 2 TW.

The novel heat pump can reportedly heat air to up to 49 C. Its full-load heating capacity is of up to 63,000 Btu/hour.

Researchers in Spain have calculated the potential self-sufficiency of rooftop solar in eight districts of Madrid, Spain. They have found that single-family homes can achieve self-sufficiency rates of more than 70%, while urban areas with high-rise buildings reach 30%.

It took eight years of field measurements for researchers at the RWTH Aachen University in Germany to estimate the usable capacity of home battery energy storage systems and develop a dataset covering 106 system years and 14 billion datapoints. Their key finding was that home battery systems lose about two to three percentage points of usable capacity per year on average, meaning good news for the industry as most warranties in the market can be met with the implementation of capacity reserves.

Researchers at TU Delft modelled a variety of offshore floating PV structures to uncover the design parameters that affect durability and yield..

Italian winemaker Svolta Srl has deployed an agrivoltaic facility at its vineyard in Apulia, Italy. The PV array allowed the cultivation of vines that are normally not viable at this latitude.

Researchers in China have proposed a new lithium-free doping strategy to fabricate spiro-OMeTAD-based hole transport layers (HTLs) for applications in perovskite solar cell. A PV device built with a salt-doped HTL achieved a record-breaking efficiency of 25.45%.