Pakistan

Energy efficiency, electrification of heating and transport, and the provision of clean cooking facilities are all going in the wrong direction as the Covid crisis deprived millions in sub-Saharan Africa of electricity use, according to a report by the IEA, IRENA, WHO, World Bank and UN Statistics Division.

Bifacial PV modules and single-axis trackers go well together, but a global research team has now noted that a comprehensive location-dependent performance analysis still has yet to be done. Their findings could help to determine the right plant setups in different locations throughout the world.

A global research group has developed a perovskite PV cell with titanium dioxide nanotubes doped with cesium. It purportedly offers better short-circuit current and power conversion efficiency than cells without cesium nanoparticles. They say it has optimal thermal stability under temperatures up to 800 C.

The renewables business formerly known as Scatec Solar has added a 2.5 GW hydropower portfolio in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa and also added its first wind farm while reporting a consolidated loss of almost $43 million for the year.

A U.S.-Pakistan research group has created a new self-cleaning mechanism for standalone PV systems up to 5 kW in size. The system increases power yields by around 35%, while its payback period is estimated at around five years.

The new technique, proposed by researchers in Pakistan, is claimed to estimate the voltage, current and temperature of a PV system without interrupting the power flow to load.

Scientists in Pakistan have proposed a new passive cooling technique which they claim can improve a module’s open-circuit voltage by up to 12.97% and its efficiency by up to 2.08%.

A research team from Pakistan has modeled the addition of a floating PV array to an existing dam project to increase the availability of power during peak load hours.

Saudi Arabian and Pakistani scientists have created a serpentine cooling block structure to improve the efficiency of PV panels in floating solar projects by around 1.5%. The cooling block can be filled via a low-cost, 15.6 W commercial 12 V DC water pump with cool water.

A Pakistani-Chinese research group has demonstrated a new maximum power point tracking method, based on a fuzzy logic algorithm to provide faster results. The converter tech is claimed to have an impact on PV system efficiency and provide isolation between the load and the PV array.