Technology

A group of ETH Zurich students are currently competing in the Bridgestone World Solar Challenge. They are racing a solar car, powered by monocrystalline silicon PV modules, through the Australian outback.

Germany’s Boreal Light says it has installed a desalination plant in Mykolaiv, Ukraine. It claims that the system – which uses 560 W solar modules to produce 125 cubic meters of clean water per hour – is Europe’s largest PV-powered desalination project.

Scientists in Bangladesh designed a cadmium telluride solar cell with upper/top and back contact materials made of aluminum (Al) and nickel (Ni). The device reportedly showed a quantum efficiency of around 100 % at visible wavelengths.

A European group has looked into the soiling impact on PV modules in Oman. They have collected 60 samples, based on season, month and tilt angles.

Land is scarce but water is abundant for the Caribbean’s 700 islands. Solar economy professor Christian Breyer tells pv magazine that the region’s archipelagic makeup is not a drawback but a benefit for renewable energy generation, with the ocean potentially serving as the area’s floating solar PV backbone.

An international research team has built a cooling tech consisting of heat absorber pipes that are thermally connected to the PV module, heat releaser pipes that exchange heat with the water body, a series of connecting pipes, and a coolant reservoir. The system claims to create a continuous fluid flow that dissipates heat from the PV cells to the surroundings.

Swiss 3S, the Switzerland-based manufacturer, is offering the new half-cell BIPV module in four sizes, ranging from 24 half-cells to 48 half-cells. The rated output is up to 225 W.

Scientists have developed a machine-learning model – utilizing K-Means and long short-term memory techniques – that aims to overcome ‘fault detection and classification’ in the operation and maintenance of large-scale solar PV farms.

Daiwa, Japan’s largest homebuilder, has developed a new solar carport that can accommodate solar modules from any manufacturer in various colors and shapes, allowing developers to consider the aesthetic requirements of the surrounding areas and buildings.

Fraunhofer ISE researchers claim the new silicon carbide inverter is technically able to handle voltage levels of up to 1,500 V at 250 kVA in utility scale solar power plants.