Technology and R&D

A group of scientists in Korea has a hot-air technique instead of atomic layer deposition to fabricate a perovskite absorber that reportedly shows a higher film quality. They applied this film in a perovskite-organic tandem solar cell, which exhibited low open-circuit voltage losses and high efficiency levels.

China Three Gorges has commissioned a 1 MW pilot solar plant with perovskite panels near Ordos, in China’s Inner Mongolia region. This marks the world’s first commercial PV system to use perovskite tech and features 11,200 modules from an undisclosed manufacturer.

Scientists in Spain have proposed to combine anaerobic digestion plants with photovoltaic-thermal panels and have found that this combination may achieve an LCOE of $0.045/kWh across several locations in Europe and North America.

Toshiba has developed a 1.5 Ah lithium-ion battery prototype with a voltage of more than 3 V. The device retains its initial efficiency for over 6,000 charge/discharge cycles and enables rapid charging to 80% of capacity within just five minutes.

A research group in South Africa has developed a novel method for PV output forecasting in commercial buildings. The proposed approach is purportedly able to accurately forecast the output power of a PV plant using real-time weather data.

Daikin has released a line of residential air-to-air heat pumps, using difluoromethane (R32) as the refrigerant, with outdoor unit dimensions of 662 mm x 442 mm x 1022 mm. The output ranges from 2.5 kW to 3.5 kW, and the seasonal coefficient of performance (SCOP) is between 4.85 and 5.17.

Australian energy giant AGL will install a nickel-hydrogen battery at its Torrens Island power station site in South Australia as it explores the potential opportunities that the technology could provide for stationary energy storage applications

Lithuania-based Solitek has launched a carport product line featuring 370 W glass-glass frameless modules. It is designed to withstand a snow load of up to 2.5 kN/m2 and 27m/s of wind loads.

Developed by researchers in China, the novel calculator uses current and voltage sensors, a Raspberry Pi, and an algorithm for fuzzy logic to determine variations in frequency and demand. The tool sends Email notifications with the tariff values to the PV system owners.

The application of busbarless cell interconnection approaches could unlock the potential of heterojunction (HJT) technology, primarily by reducing the historically high silver usage of negatively-doped, “n-type” cell technology. As HJT manufacturing increases, a wave of applications may very well be on the horizon.