Technology and R&D

Spanish researchers have developed an analytical model to optimize the operation of PV water pumping systems. They say simultaneously irrigating different parts of a farm could help minimize costs and maximize energy use. The model was tested on an olive farm divided into four zones in the Spanish province of Almería.

Researchers from Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah University of Science and Technology claim to have developed a highly performant organic PV cell using tungsten disulfide flakes a few atoms thick. The stability of the device, however, is still to be evaluated.

Researchers from the two prestigious U.K. universities are analyzing spatiotemporal charge-carrier dynamics in the perovskite materials used for solar applications. They have discovered the carriers propagate ballistically over 150nm within 20fs of photon absorption.

With its app already present in Belgium and the Netherlands, start-up Jedlix is introducing smart charging in France. The solution enables Tesla drivers to optimize their charging strategy.

Comet-ME has developed a solar-powered submersible borehole piston pump for off-grid communities and smallholders to use for irrigation and domestic purposes. The device, compatible with PV systems from 300-900 W in size, can pump water from 45m with as little as 50 W of continuous solar power.

The company’s technology falls into the ‘kerfless’ wafer category: Instead of sawing silicon ingots into wafers, a time-consuming and wasteful process, 1366’s approach forms wafers directly, using molten silicon.

Scientists from Penn State University have developed a self-heating battery for electric vehicles which is said charge in only 10 minutes at 60 degrees Celsius.

A U.S. research team has used machine learning to optimize material composition and predict the design strategies and performance of perovskite solar cells. The researchers analyzed 2,000 peer-reviewed perovskite publications and collected more than 300 data points.

Dec. 3rd, 2019, Shanghai, Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) holds its annual conference, the BNEF Summit Shanghai 2019, in Ritz-Carlton Pudong. More than 300 experts of renewable energy industry from China and other countries of the world joined the meeting.

PV Magazine had an interview with Mr. Rongfang Yin, executive vice president of Trina Solar, about Trina’s business and view.

A Malaysian study has compared the techniques used to reduce total harmonic distortion caused by PV systems. The paper, which considers the benefits and drawbacks of the approaches studied, suggests the use of adaptive filters.