Japan

Researchers in Japan have built a PV-powered device to measure volumetric variations in blood circulation. The system, which is just a few microns thick, was built with an organic solar module, a polymer light-emitting diode (PLED), and an organic photodetector.

The Japanese company will supply, with solar power, a denim factory in the Hiroshima prefecture.

The latest set of clean energy statistics compiled by the International Renewable Energy Agency signal a changing of the guard when it comes to clean power, with legacy hydropower facilities overtaken by new intermittent renewables.

The Chinese giant overhauled JA Solar by moving almost 16 GW worth of modules, with the 600 W-plus, 210mm-wafer-based Vertex range it launched last year having already sold 10 GW of units.

Japanese scientists have used spray pyrolysis deposition to fabricate perovskite solar cells based on a titanium oxide electron transport layer. They claim that the cells have the potential to reach a power conversion efficiency rating of more than 30%.

Trade bodies the Africa Solar Industry Association and the African Hydrogen Partnership hosted a two-day virtual conference to discuss the role green hydrogen can play in economic growth across the continent–and how it could drive desalination in freshwater-starved coastal countries.

Canadian Solar is pivoting towards energy storage and is preparing to IPO its manufacturing and Chinese solar project activity in China, under the CSI Solar operation, by July.

Rooftops will have to supply a third of the 524 GW of solar generation capacity needed by 2045 to reach a zero-carbon economy by mid century, according to an academic paper. The researchers also suggested green hydrogen should not play a central role in the nation’s energy transition.

Redflow has agreed to supply biowaste specialist Anaergia with a 2 MWh energy storage system, while Perth-based Technology Metals has signed a deal with Japan’s LE System to potentially make vanadium electrolyte in Australia.

The single-junction cell has a conversion efficiency of only 1.4%, but its creators claim it may easily reach between 4 and 5%, when properly optimized. The device also showed a remarkable open-circuit voltage of 360 mV, which the scientists described as the highest VOC value ever reached for SnS‐based heterojunction solar cells.