Technology and R&D

Chinese inverter manufacturer TSUN says its new balcony PV kit consists of one or two 20.7%-efficient solar modules, a 96.7%-efficient microinverter, a bracket, and cables.

An international research team has fabricated a heat-driven thermoacoustic heat pump prototype that is claimed to achieve a heating capacity of 5.7 kW and a coefficient of performance of 1.4, with a heating temperature of 300 C and a heat-sink temperature of 55 C. The device uses medium/low-grade heat sources and is purportedly able to offer a complementary solution to the existing domestic heating methods.

Scientists in China have proposed to use recycled silicon from discarded solar cells to build anodes for batteries. They combined the recycled waste silicon powder with graphite and created a composite material that is claimed to exhibit remarkable electrochemical performance.

In a new weekly update for pv magazine, Solcast, a DNV company, presents the solar irradiance data it collected for Australia in June. The data showed that Eastern New South Wales received irradiance about 15% above normal for June, whilst central and western Victoria received totals 10-20% lower than normal.

The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission (PUC) has approved Form Energy’s 10 MW/1 GWh iron-air long-duration storage facility for Xcel Energy.

A California hydrogen developer and a Netherlands-based desalination company have formed a new partnership.

Spanish scientists have proposed a new approach to combine photovoltaic-thermal panels with a reversible air-to-water heat pump in industrial buildings. The system is intended to provide space heating, cooling, domestic hot water, and electricity.

Scientists in South Korea have stressed the importance of accurately setting the angle of slat PV blinds to maximize power generation. They found that there is a tradeoff between elevated power yield and self-shading effects in this BIPV technology.

Viridian offers five versions of its new residential inverters, with power outputs ranging from 1 kW to 3 kW and an efficiency ranging from 97.2% and 97.6%. The European efficiency is 96.4% to 97.2%.

Germany’s VoltStorage says its containerized 50 kWh vanadium redox flow battery solution can be scaled up to 500 kWh.