Technology and R&D

At the smarter E-Intersolar Europe trade show this week, awards have been given to the technologies driving the energy transition to a low carbon future. Prizes include the Intersolar Award, recognizing PV technology; the EES prize for storage innovation; and the smarter E awards – one of which was given to an off-grid agricultural project in Australia.

Welsh consultancy’s technology could help business, universities and local councils make fuel savings regardless of lack of PV subsidy in the U.K.

Underlining India’s commitment to becoming the global renewable energy leader, Shri Anand Kumar, Secretary of India’s Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, said the country plans 500 GW of capacity by 2030. He also underlined India’s plans for becoming a solar and storage manufacturing hub; and said the International Solar Alliance needs to widen its membership.

The utilization rate of materials and energy in Nexwafe’s kerfless wafer production processes is said to be almost 100%, at a time when price pressures on solar modules are expected to get significantly heavier in the immediate future.

Scientists at Oxford University say two lead-free perovskites investigated for their potential to raise the efficiency of solar modules – when used in tandem with high efficiency silicon cells – may also offer a leap forward in solar storage technology. In a paper published in Applied Physics Letters, Feliciano Giustino and George Volonakis, suggest halide […]

The planned cell is to be based on the so-called norbornadiene-quadricyclane storage system.

Researchers from Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin (HZB) and Oxford PV have presented a new record perovskite tandem solar cell, with a 25.2% conversion efficiency, independently verified by Fraunhofer ISE. Bernd Stannowski, from HZB presented the results this week at the World Conference on Photovoltaic Energy Conversion (WCPEC-7) in Hawaii.

A new study from University of California, Riverside, uses electric dipoles to accelerate electron in one direction, whilst completely stopping it in the other. The discovery, according to researchers, could lead to improvements in solar cell and other energy conversion technologies.

The utility’s renewable energy unit PGE EO has announced the construction of a PV laboratory and a solar module field test in Siedlce. The move is part of its plan to invest in solar parks up to 1 MW under Poland’s auction mechanism.

Crystalline silicon tandem cell structures show great promise in delivering efficiencies beyond the limits of conventional c-Si. Swiss researchers claim to have gone beyond 25% with a c-Si-perovskite tandem cell structure, using what they claim is a competitive production process.