Canada

Canada’s Solaires Entreprises says its indoor perovskite modules are suitable for powering a range of electronic devices, such as wireless keyboards, smart door locks, electronic shelf labels, and sensors.

An international research team built the triple-junction device with dual bulk and interface passivation technique aimed at promoting halide homogeneity at the interface between the perovskite absorber and the hole-transport-layer. The 0.049 cm2 cell achieved a remarkable open-circuit voltage of 3.33 V and was also able to retain 80% of its initial efficiency after 200 h of continuous maximum power point tracking.

Rural land for renewable generation should be considered as a last resort, developers should restore environments post-project, and hosting “site objections” should be considered, the Ontario Federation of Agriculture (OFA) says in its submission regarding proposed renewable energy legal changes in the Canadian state of Ontario.

Last year Canada switched on its largest utility-scale PV array – the 465 MW (AC) Travers Solar Project – which buoyed solar figures to 4.4 GW, according to the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA). But a PV expert warns a six-month pause on renewable energy projects in Alberta this year could slow the whole country’s momentum.

Combined production from the Mahone Bay and Berwick solar power plants are moving the Canadian province of Nova Scotia closer to its climate plan goals.

Terravis Energy said its heat pump prototype uses difluoromethane (R32) as the refrigerant and has a seasonal coefficient of performance (SCOP) of approximately 3.0 under Ontario’s environmental conditions.

UK-based researchers have developed a novel method to estimate the amount of defrost cycles a heat pump will experience in the winter and how much energy it would require to implement the cycles. The results of their simulation showed a strong relationship between the number of defrost cycles and the ambient temperature.

An international research group has utilized through-substrate-vias to create 3D interconnections in III-V solar cells with a triple-junction architecture. The novel cell design was found to have a low shading factor of below 3% and a 6-fold increase in wafer area use compared to cells based on 2D interconnects.

An international research group has utilized a new porosification technique to build gallium arsenide (GaAs) solar cells that allow the recovery of germanium films. The new cell achieved an efficiency that is reportedly in line with that of other GaAs PV devices, but can be produced at a lower cost thanks to the reuse of germanium.

First Solar and its cadmium telluride (CdTe) technology dominate thin-film solar in the mainstream market. Valerie Thompson looks at the US-based business and the future of thin-film PV technology.