Technology and R&D

A research team from South Korea’s Ulsan National Institute of Science & Technology (UNIST) has designed a wire-free transparent solar cell and module with all electrical contacts placed on the rear side. A 16 cm² module achieved a power conversion efficiency of 14.7% and successfully charged a smartphone using natural sunlight.

Paxos Solar has developed a new glass-glass PV tile that integrates with heat pumps, featuring Longi’s back-contact solar cells. The 44 W, 59.5 cm x 48 cm tile can also produce heat for residential systems.

Envertech says it has developed microinverters for PV systems supporting up to 60 modules, allowing up to four modules per unit with separate maximum power point tracking.

The novel method uses the YOLOv8 framework, integrating an attention mechanism and a transformer model. It was tested on a dataset of 4,500 electroluminescence images against several other models and its results were up to 17.2% more accurate.

Solevi, a German electroluminescence (EL) inspection company, has launched drone-based electrical inspection services for rooftop solar installation in Germany with plans to automate further and expand geographically.

Researchers in the United Kingdom have presented a new heat pump system that may avoid reducing heat supply during defrosting operations. The proposed concept can reportedly execute defrosting operations while ensuring continuous heating by condensing the refrigerant in the frosted evaporator.

Researchers in China have found that a special type of hygroscopic hydrogel made of the polyacrylamide polymer and lithium chloride may reduce PV module temperature by up to 7.5%. They have also developed a mathematical model to analyze the operational mechanisms and factors responsible for the cooling performance.

King Abdullah University of Science and Technology researchers have told pv magazine that hydrogen storage pipelines and gravel could become a reality in lakes or water reservoirs in Europe, the United States, Japan, or China within 10 years. “The technology required to implement the proposed system is available, simple and cheap,” they said.

A European research consortium has produced a prototype solid-state battery using a new manufacturing process that reportedly achieves high energy densities and can be implemented on modern lithium-ion battery production lines.

Venice-based 9-tech has developed a thermomechanical process to recycle end-of-life PV panels, with early results showing an 87% recovery yield of materials such as silicon, copper, and silver.