Technology

Spanish manufacturer Sumcab says its new ToughGround and Overground cables are designed for underground and overhead photovoltaic systems throughout the world, offering durability, rapid installation, and a 30-year lifespan.

Italian research agency Enea has created a web tool that assesses the feasibility of replacing residential gas boilers with heat pumps by providing an estimate of the potential energy and economic savings. The app also provides information on the technical specifications of the photovoltaic system necessary to meet the heat pump’s electricity demand.

A report from the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) notes that while it is still uncertain whether sodium-ion batteries will become a disruptive alternative to lithium-ion technology, they could offer significant cost-saving opportunities in applications such as electric vehicles and large-scale energy storage.

Mitsui Home and Tokyo Gas have revealed plans to deploy Japan’s first combined on-site and virtual solar power purchase agreement (PPA), cutting factory emissions and maximizing rooftop energy use.

The Chinese manufacturer said the higher-voltage design of the new module reduces cable, combiner, pile-foundation, and land-use requirements, delivering balance-of-system savings of up to CNY 0.15 ($0.012)/W in western China. The module offers a power output of 730 W to 770 W and a conversion efficiency of up to 24.8%.

A research team in India has investigated the use of highly conductive transparent electrodes based on amorphous indium zinc made with a room temperature process in perovskite solar cells. The devices could be used in tandem and building-integrated PV applications.

The new 12.5 kWh pack-based design supports flexible configuration up to 250 kWh per system. An optional long-duration combiner box supports 2–4 clusters, expandable to 1,000 kWh and 8 hours of storage.

The Chinese manufacturer says Germany’s Institute for Solar Energy Research Hamelin (ISFH) has independently verified the result.

Korean researchers revealed that efficiency losses in heterojunction solar cells arise from two coexisting defect types – dangling bonds and weak silicon-silicon bonds. Their findings explain how hydrogenated amorphous silicon passivation help mitigate these defects and improve cell performance.

Researchers at University of Jaén in Spain have demonstrated a semi-transparent crystalline silicon solar photovoltaic module with rear-side optical concentrators for agrivoltaics applications.