Adding solar to offshore wind
Scientists in the Netherlands conducted a feasibility study for adding floating solar to a planned 752 MW offshore wind installation in the North Sea. The study finds that the two could realistically share a single connection to an onshore grid, with minimal curtailment as well as technical and economic benefits for both technologies.
Solar mini-grid to protect Austrian highway from blackouts
The Austrian motorway company Asfinag is planning to power, with solar-plus-storage, all its maintenance facilities. These installations are planned to power the stations at night and in the event of a grid failure.
Japanese researchers build tin(II) sulfide solar cell with high open-circuit voltage
The single-junction cell has a conversion efficiency of only 1.4%, but its creators claim it may easily reach between 4 and 5%, when properly optimized. The device also showed a remarkable open-circuit voltage of 360 mV, which the scientists described as the highest VOC value ever reached for SnS‐based heterojunction solar cells.
Hosting capacity maps: A gold mine for solar developers
Multiple U.S. states require electric utilities to share their power grid data with solar developers. The resulting tools are like treasure maps for solar developers.
Northvolt acquires lithium-metal battery start-up Cuberg
The technology developed by a business spun out of Stanford five years ago could deliver an electrolyte with energy density of more than 1 kWh/l.
AI identifies a $14bn solar problem
How do you know when an inverter or module is under-performing? Monitoring services should shed light on problems but AI-driven digital asset manager Raycatch says much information is hidden behind a wall of “noise.” Breaking that wall with advanced data analysis could unlock billions of cost savings.
UK start-up builds gravity-based storage system at Scottish port
Scottish start-up Gravitricity has begun construction of a 250 kW gravity-based energy storage project at Port of Leith. A 15m-high rig uses renewable energy to raise a mass in a 150-1,500m shaft and discharges the electricity thus ‘stored’ by releasing the mass to rotate an electric generator.
Solar arrays on canals
PV installations on canals are common in India, as they provide electricity without occupying land, while reducing evaporation. However, they are still more expensive than ground-mounted PV projects.
III-V multi-junction solar cell with 39% efficiency
Finnish scientists have developed a four-junction solar cell based on III-V semiconductor materials that is said to be able to achieve a wide spectral coverage. The cell was monolithically grown on gallium arsenide by molecular beam epitaxy (MBE).
Sharp develops 445 W half-cut panels for large scale PV
The new panel is manufactured with M6 wafers. It features a power conversion efficiency of 20.1% and a temperature coefficient of -0.347% per degree Celsius.
