Technology and R&D

Three US manufacturers actively working to commercialize their respective perovskite-silicon tandem technologies make the case for tandem modules. CubicPV, Caelux and Swift Solar argue a commercial future for perovskites is inevitable, and they tell pv magazine the current policy environment could work in the technology’s favor.

Researches in China have sought to assess how lateral vibration in diamond wire sawing can increase kerf losses in solar wafer manufacturing and have developed a predictive model than can reportedly help reduce them. Their analysis showed that, with constant sawing parameters, smaller wafers suffer from greater excess kerf loss.

Scientists in China have investigated the hydrodynamic performance of a novel modular floating photovoltaic system. They did so using a novel hybrid approach, which integrates viscous-flow effects from computational fluid dynamics into a potential-flow solver. They analyzed the new system with varying numbers of panels, either in a single chain or a parallel configuration.

Scientists in Belgium have investigated how perovskite absorbers used in solar cell degrade under three different stress test types and have found that the interface between the perovskite layer and the electron transport layer suffers from weak thermomechanical stability, which creates the conditions for performance losses.

Researchers at Monash University in Australia have developed a new carbon-based material they claim allows supercapacitors to store as much energy as traditional lead-acid batteries, while delivering power much faster than conventional batteries can manage.

The researchers developed a heat-driven thermoacoustic heat pump that can purportedly achieve a temperature lift of 125 C. It uses a thermoacoustic heat pump to stably release the heat from the engine unit. The system also includes a thermoacoustic engine unit and acoustic resonators.

Researchers in Spain investigated effective separation of encapsulants from PV glass with a focus on melting behavior and resistance to the hot knife-method of delamination. The results indicated that thermoplastic polyolefin encapsulants were the easiest to remove from the PV glass.

The inverter is designed for three-phase grid configurations without using external transformers. It contains gallium nitride technology, a first for Enphase’s microinverters.

California has completed the 1.6 MW Nexus canal-top solar pilot, adding a 75 kW iron-flow battery system as part of a $20 million state-funded project to test water and energy benefits.

Conceived for Nordic conditions, the Raynor heat pump features a seasonal coefficient of performance of 5.1 and a cooling seasonal energy efficiency rating of 9.2.