Technology and R&D

With the rapid growth in electric vehicle (EV) demand bringing fears of a mountain of EV battery waste piling up further down the line, the EU-Swiss government-funded Recirculate program is planning how to keep batteries in use for much longer before they head to recyclers.

Romania is resuming the development of the Tarniţa Lăpuşteşti pumped hydro storage project, with a planned capacity of 500 MW to 1 GW. It will be the first installation of its kind in the country.

Pexapark, a Swiss consultancy, has studied energy storage drivers, value streams, contractual agreements, and regional perspectives in Europe. It says that one obstacle to deployment is the inability to properly model revenue, and notes that 15% of companies plan to use AC coupling for projects in the next three years.

A new process is described as a tool to assess the value of deferring, relocating, or abandoning PV projects under development in uncertain market conditions. It reportedly allows accommodating different sources of uncertainties with different stochastic features, as well as accounting for the various managerial flexibilities embedded in most solar projects.

Massimo Albino Russo, head of business development for Enerqos Energy Solutions, recently spoke with pv magazine Italy about its smart O&M service to detect dysfunctions in solar arrays hit by hail. The Ameresco Group subsidiary uses drones and artificial intelligence to deal with PV system damage.

Eternalsun Spire launched a solar simulator to test the performance, stability, and reliability of perovskite, tandem, thin film, and conventional PV technologies.

Australian installer UV Solar has rolled out a new frameless solar panel that manufacturer GoodWe says is 60% lighter than conventional PV modules, making it ideal for rooftops that are unable to support traditional PV and racking.

The National Energy Regulator of South Africa (NERSA) is moving forward with plans to split Eskom into three separate entities. NERSA has granted the National Transmission Company of South Africa the authority to function independently from Eskom, while South Africa’s National Treasury is working on a bill to address the troubled national utility’s ZAR 423 billion ($23 billion) debt burden.

Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin has been awarded $35 million in funding from NASA to improve the company’s commercial solution that produces silicon from lunar regolith. The US spatial agency’s first efforts to build solar cells based on lunar regolith date back to 2005.

Developed by scientists in Malaysia, the new PVT collector uses reversed circular flow jet impingement (RCFJI) as a cooling mechanism. Its creators claim the panel may be used for off-grid applications and the generated thermal energy could be used for drying purposes.