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Technology and R&D

Longi betting on back-contact solar cell tech

Longi Chairman Zhong Baoshen said last week that that the company’s hybrid passivated back contact (HPBC) technology will dominate its production capacity in the future.

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Real-time interface to reduce Netherlands’ grid congestion

All new PV plants over 1 MW in the Netherlands will have to use a real-time interface to make their facilities better communicate with the grid operator starting from next year. Utrecht-based Withthegrid, has developed an interface that is compatible with a number of brand-name inverters.

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New control strategy for PV-powered water pumps operating under variable atmospheric conditions

Scientists in Turkey have developed a new algorithm to optimize the efficiency of PV-powered water pumps. The novel technique is based on the Extended Kalman–Bucy filter, which is a predictor-corrector algorithm used extensively in control systems engineering for estimating unmeasured states of a process.

How to build, finance product stewardship scheme for photovoltaic panels

Researchers in Australia have provided a series of recommendations to set up regulatory frameworks for PV module recycling and reuse. They said that, as a rule of thumb, landfill bans, tracking of the panels’ serial numbers, and a clear definition of ownership should always be included in the legislation for end-of-life solar products.

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How long do residential solar panels last?

Multiple factors affect the productive lifespan of a residential solar panel. In the first part of this series, we look at the solar panels themselves.

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The Hydrogen Stream: combination of power grid expansion and hydrogen network cheapest option in a net-zero system

Researchers found out that the cheapest way to reach a net-zero system in Europe includes a power grid expansion and a hydrogen network. Meanwhile, Lhyfe signs a PPA for its hydrogen facility in Bretagne, and Nortegas reaches 15% of hydrogen in replica of its distribution network in Spain.

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Distributed PV, battery storage curtailment in low-voltage networks

University of New South Wales (UNSW) researchers have looked at energy losses in South Australia and have identified average curtailment of 1.5% for distributed PV sites and 0.2% for distributed PV coupled with batteries, but some locations experience generation losses of up to 25%.

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PV-powered heat pumps with thermal, electrical storage

Italian researchers have looked at the potential of thermal and electrical energy storage to improve self-consumption rates in buildings when coupled with PV-powered heat pumps. They have concluded that such an approach could yield self-consumption rates of more than 80%.

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Toshiba unveils silicon carbide MOSFET for PV inverters

Toshiba has developed a 2,200 V silicon carbide (SiC) MOSFET for inverters and energy storage systems, in order to help inverter manufacturers to reduce the size and weight of their products.

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Jetstream changes drive UK and Spain solar resource higher

In a new weekly update for pv magazine, Solcast, a DNV company, presents the solar irradiance data it collected for Europe in August. The UK saw on average 110% of normal August irradiance, with values exceeding this in the north. Spain and Portugal received 10-20% more than normal, due to reduced cloud.

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