Technology and R&D

China Southern Power Grid has deployed a 10 MWh sodium-ion battery in China’s Guangxi Zhuang region. It is the first phase of a 100 MWh project.

The Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), the US Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), and German battery analysis specialist Twaice have jointly evaluated 26 battery fires between 2018 and 2023. They say that the diversity of components plays a critical role in igniting fires.

Scientists in China have demonstrated a photovoltaic-thermal system that utilizes Tesla valves to increase cooling and efficiency. The system was found to have better performance compared to PVT systems made with several different cross-sectional structures.

A startup spun out of the Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) has secured a grant to build a 5 kW electrolyzer that will be deployed at a UK power plant operated by French energy utility EDF.

UNSW scientists have suggested to use dual-fuel reciprocating engines for adding gas-to-power operations in large scale production of hydrogen based on PV power. The preliminary findings of their research show that the proposed system is still achieving a too high LCOE for commercial maturity. Decreasing electrolyzer costs, policy interventions and changing energy market dynamics, however, may more than halve the LCOE values in the future.

The Chinese manufacturer said the new product has an efficiency of up to 19.46% and a temperature coefficient of -0.30% per C. It is available in bright red, light gray, brown, green, blue-green, orange, and ocean blue.

An international research team developed a perovskite solar cell performance-boosting treatment based on phenethyl ammonium chloride (PEACl) that is also claimed to reduce the number of process steps. With this technique, the group built a champion device with a 20.9% efficiency.

Development of green hydrogen production in Europe is moving forward in fits and starts, but the ongoing World Hydrogen 2024 event in Rotterdam calls for blue hydrogen adoption, which suggests that the oil and gas industry aims to maintain control of the hydrogen market. 

The Austrian manufacturer said its new heat pump can achieve a seasonal coefficient of performance of up to 4.7 and flow temperatures of up to 75 C. It is available with sizes ranging from 2 kW to 7 kW.

Developed through bandgap engineering and material design, the proposed PV device relies on a tin-based perovskite material known as CsSnI3-xBrx. It can reportedly be further designed to achieve power conversion efficiencies exceeding 24%.