Technology

At first glance, the European PV conference this week has confirmed the widespread view that the upswing of monocrystalline technology will accelerate. But a closer look reveals that multicrystalline solar cells are still in the game.

Although the “solar flow battery” is currently considered too expensive by its own creators, a further improvement of its design and the use of emerging solar materials and new electrochemistry may open new opportunities for this kind of technology.

The technology is said to use blockchain’s properties of providing secure real-time and fully transparent data. The company says that ensuring renewable energy certificates is becoming increasingly important. This is the first step towards a more comprehensive platform that seeks to cover renewable energy assets from other energy companies as well.

This means that this promising material, contrary to common belief, is able to form domains of polarized strain to minimize elastic energy. The research team made its discovery by using multimodal imaging.

The EU PVSEC conference, held this week in Brussels, was filled with bold announcements regarding solar’s trajectory in the coming years; and is backed up by a few announcements of new world records and impressive results from industry players and leading research institutes.

The Belgian research institute developed its cell in partnership with EnergyVille, Solliance and German research center, ZSW.

The solar company has launched a five-year research project with the British scientists, which has been funded with £2.5 million from the U.K. Government. The goal is to develop a thin film multi-junction perovskite solar cell with a 37% efficiency and long-term stability.

Although solar energy roads are still considered economically unviable, the Dutch water management agency, Rijkswaterstaat announced it will investigate their potential as an alternative to the lack of surfaces for PV deployment in the Netherlands.

Solar cell manufacturers are always on an R&D race to improve efficiency. But even with their efforts, today you can still expect up to about a 3.5% loss from carrier- or light-induced degradation, industry insiders claimed last Thursday at pv magazine’s Quality Roundtable, held at Energy Taiwan 2018 in Taipei.

The two companies have installed systems in Kenya and the Democratic Republic of Congo to provide a cheap, secure energy supply. BloombergNEF has predicted the market for off-grid solar will grow considerably as it can meet the needs for universal energy supply at a cost competitive price.