Technology and R&D

Austrian researchers have proposed gravitational energy storage for locations with low demand. The scientists claim the system they are suggesting can be combined with other forms of storage as well as renewables, costs $50-100 per megawatt-hour of stored energy and $1-2 million per megawatt of installed capacity to develop.

Swedish company Exeger says the dye-sensitized ‘light-harvesting material’ it will produce at its facility will generate enough power to prevent the need to recharge portable electronic devices, lengthening battery lifespan perhaps indefinitely.

Scientists at Germany’s Karlsruhe Institute of Technology have received €4.5 million from the Carl Zeiss Foundation to begin a project developing an entirely new solar cell concept they say will combine the printability of organic PV, long-term stability of crystalline solar cells and ferroelectricity of lead-halide perovskites.

PV industry veteran Karl-Heinz Remmers recalls the trajectory of solar power this decade and predicts stronger than expected development for the ten years ahead.

An international research group claims to have developed a new bulk perovskite semiconductor material that can capture the excess energy of hot electrons. The material is said to rapidly absorb as heat energy which would otherwise be wasted. With the harvesting of hot electrons, the maximum theoretical efficiency for hybrid-perovskite solar cells could increase from 33% to 66%.

This year’s record-breaking event held in Lisbon, Portugal, included an energy track devoted to renewable sources and technology to address climate change.

Toxicologists are struggling to follow the pace at which perovskite solar cells race from laboratory test benches to factory production lines. While researchers continue to assess the health and safety risks stemming from the lead used at the core of these new materials, the startups commercializing them argue that established encapsulation techniques and sound recycling schemes are enough to safety-proof their potentially disruptive technology and offset broader environmental threats.

The new cell is based on a p-type transparent conductor made of carbon nanotube fibers. The device is said to offer 16% more efficiency than rival amorphous cells.

A researcher has proposed a new approach to apply maximum power point tracking techniques to optimize electricity production in wind-solar power projects. The permanent magnetic synchronous generator hybrid model used in the study is based on a multi-input rectifier stage which is said to be able to eradicate current harmonics and eliminate the need for extra input filters.

Researchers at Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah University of Science and Technology have demonstrated a method they say could improve the stability of perovskite structures. The group found adding an organic dopant served to increase the strength of chemical bonds between organic and inorganic elements of a perovskite.