Technology and R&D

Newcastle University engineers have patented a thermal storage material that can store large amounts of renewable energy as heat for long periods. MGA Thermal is now manufacturing the thermal energy storage blocks as storage for large-scale solar systems and to repurpose coal-fired power stations.

Scientists in India conducted a techno-economic analysis for a 100 MW production line for carbon-electrode perovskite solar modules, located in Himachal Pradesh, India. The analysis concludes that, even at the smaller scale, this emerging technology could achieve cost levels comparable with today’s silicon solar products.

The Ingecon Sun Storage 100TL battery inverter has an efficiency of 98.8% and a European efficiency rating of 98.1%. The device features maximum DC voltage of 1,100 V and an input voltage range of 570-850 V.

Developed by cleantech company Verditek, the flexible module has a 20.1% efficiency and a weight of 4.9kg. It can bend up to 35% using standard 160µ-thick crystalline cells.

A U.S. research team has sought to improve the way aluminum hydride is used for hydrogen storage. The material was nanoconfined in a framework that is claimed to be able to overcome the challenge represented by the thermodynamic limitation of hydrides in storing the clean fuel.

U.K. researchers have developed a battery with a photocathode made of vanadium dioxide, which is used to harvest light and store zinc ions and zinc oxide as a charge transport layer. The device showed an efficiency of around 1.2% and capacity retention of around 73% after 500 cycles.

U.S. researchers have concluded that wind and solar generation resources that were sized at 1.5 times along with three hours of energy storage would meet all but 200 hours of demand scattered throughout any given year.

Scientists in Germany investigated various routes to optimizing cell design for perovskite-silicon tandem products. Beyond the perovskite layer itself, they note several other areas that should be optimized for tandem cells, taking silicon heterojunction processing as a starting point. The research identifies several routes to cut costs in cell production, including a significant reduction in indium consumption.

The Japanese manufacturer decided to close its CIS module production in October and has now launched its first 250 W monocrystalline product for the residential market.

Through the inventory, an international group of researchers was able to identify 68,661 PV facilities, totaling 423 GW across 31 countries. According to the scientists, the online database provides insight into global trends for PV siting decisions, as well as into the gap between facility-level final investment decisions, construction start dates, construction completion dates and facility operations.