Germany

The Landshut University of Applied Sciences and German start-up Voltstorage will initially develop a residential battery with a capacity of 8 kWh. At a later stage, they want to fabricate a 50 kWh device for applications in the commercial segment.

German manufacturer Autarq is selling its solar tiles at a price ranging from €25 to €30 per piece. It claims a PV system built with these products can cover around 70% of household needs.

Swiss solar manufacturer Meyer Burger is now looking for people to work at its new factories in Freiberg and Bitterfeld-Wolfen, Germany. The two facilities are scheduled to start production in May.

The German photovoltaic manufacturer was once a trademark for German quality. After two bankruptcies, it is again active in Europe, primarily in the commercial and industrial rooftop segment. It sticks to the same philosophy: to offer superior solar solutions.

A cleaning robot optimized for floating PV installations was developed by German manufacturer TG hyLIFT. Also suitable for ground-mount PV, it uses only water without any type of detergent, and is powered by batteries. The robot is now being tested at a floating PV array in Spain.

Scientists at Germany’s Fraunhofer ISE developed a model to simulate different setups for screen printing in solar cell metallization. The model provides a comparable ‘screen utility index’ value that can predict the usefulness of different architectures in the printing equipment in relation to the properties of a given silver paste. The approach, says Fraunhofer, will assist the PV industry in reducing the amounts of silver needed in silicon cell manufacturing.

The German manufacturer said the result was confirmed by the US National Renewable Energy Laboratory. The achieved efficiency is claimed to be a world record for a CIGS panel with an integrated series connection of 30×30 cm.

Scientists in Germany demonstrated a slot die coating process for large-scale production of perovskite thin-film solar cells that achieved a maximum efficiency of 20.83%. Using an additive, and experimenting to find the optimal concentration, the group demonstrated improved control over the crystallization process – crucial for developing stable, repeatable processing.

According to the analysts, the German photovoltaic market would grow by 23% this year, compared to 2020. Strong growth is expected to come from large scale projects.

German scientists have improved the scribing method to interconnect perovskite PV cells, in order to then upscale them into mini PV modules. They established suitable laser fluence ranges for nanosecond and picosecond lasers and found that the former results in higher efficiency levels.