Technology and R&D

New research from Hong Kong confirms that rooftop PV systems significantly contribute raise daytime temperatures in urban environments. The scientists explained that, although their findings highlight important urban resilience considerations, they should not detract from the broader benefits of PV systems for energy sustainability and carbon reduction.

Researchers have designed a novel multigeneration energy system that provides five outputs, namely electricity, hydrogen, cooling, heating, and hot water. The system is mainly powered by a solar heliostat system and incorporates compressed air and pumped hydro storage technologies for storing surplus power.

Liquid insulation is one of the ways of ensuring transformers – which convert electric power from high voltages to lower voltages – remain safe. Mineral oil, however, has been the main insulating liquid in industrial power systems to date and sustanaible alternatives are strongly needed.

An international team of researchers used a novel interfacial treatment to improve the performance of perovskite solar cells across a range of narrow and wide bandgap single junction, tandem, and mini-module samples. An all-perovskite tandem solar cell demonstrated its use with a certified efficiency of 29.5%.

Qcells says its new EcoRecycle facility in the US state of Georgia will remove aluminum, glass, silver and copper from used solar modules and process them for re-use.

Researchers in Saudi Arabia have developed a hydrogel composite that absorbs moisture in solar modules overnight and facilitates evaporative cooling throughout daylight hours. The system has undergone lab tests and outdoor experiments on two continents.

Researchers in Germany have modeled dozens of indirect-expansion solar-assisted heat pump systems using photovoltaic-thermal panels for single-family homes in Munich, Berlin, and Hamburg. Simulations accounted for local weather, electricity use, and thermal demand.

Chinese scientists hit 24.6% efficiency with a two-terminal perovskite-CIGS tandem cell by adding D-homoserine lactone hydrochloride (D-HLH) to the perovskite precursor, marking one of the highest reported performances for the technology.

Scientists in India have designed a new soiling chamber that is capable of emulating the soiling conditions of a given geographical location in a shorter time frame, hosting larger panels compared to conventional setups. The new chamber can be used to estimate soiling losses and cleaning costs for potential solar power plant sites, to improve existing soiling models, to investigate how factors like tilt angle affect soiling, and to evaluate the effectiveness and durability of anti-soiling coatings.

Austria’s Aerocompact says its new PV mounting system can be installed on foil, bitumen, gravel, and concrete rooftops. It can reportedly withstand wind loads of up to 1.7 kN/m2 and snow loads of up to 3.5 kN/m2.