Technology

NREL and Berkeley Lab have proposed efficiency and stability best practices for solar water-splitting to make hydrogen, while a team of researchers from Malaysia and Pakistan have revealed their findings on the feasibility of hydrogen-based incineration.

A UK research group has used surface modulators to reduce non-radiative recombination in perovskite solar cells. They used 2-TEAI organic halide salt to build a cell with high power conversion efficiency and stability.

FoxEss has released new inverters with nominal power ranging from 0.7 kW to 3.3 kW, a maximum efficiency rating of 97.4%, and a maximum European efficiency of 96.8%. They measure 290 mm x 220 mm x 116 mm and weigh in at 5.4 kg.

Scientists have proposed a way to combine thermoelectric modules (TEMs) with rooftop PV to support heating, ventilation and air conditioning in buildings. They designed a wall-integrated TEM to heat and cool adjacent rooms.

UK researchers have developed organic electrode materials to integrate redox-active organic molecules into long-chain polymers. The new electrodes exhibit better cycling performance in lithium-ion batteries, with no apparent capacity decay over more than a thousand charge-discharge cycles.

Carrier will soon begin field tests for a prototype air-source heat pump for cold climates. It is designed to provide high-efficiency heating performance in harsh climates with temperatures equal or below negative 29 degrees Celsius, while being grid-interactive. The US-based heating tech specialist expects to commercialize the solution by 2024.

IEA-PVPS has standardized guidelines for O&M programs for large-scale solar plants. It defines O&M performance indicators and standard O&M operator services, as well as tools to analyze PV plant performance and safety.

Radovan Kopecek, an expert on interdigitated back-contacted (IBC) tech, says that IBC solar panels could capture more than 50% of the global market by 2030, potentially pushing TOPCon products out of competition. He told pv magazine how this transition might materialize and discussed the tech advancements that could make it possible.

Dutch scientists have achieved a record-breaking efficiency for a silicon heterojunction solar cell fabricated with a hole collector based on a molybdenum oxide (MoOx). They used plasma treatments to increase the presence of oxygen in the MoOx layer, to improve its electronic properties.

Australia’s two main tracker companies, Nextracker and Array Technologies, are launching terrain-following products to mitigate and even eliminate the need for earthworks on site, opening up previously unsuitable land for solar.