South Korea

South Korean scientists have developed a new way to integrate a lithium-metal anode into a battery and reach higher energy capacity levels than current lithium-ion tech. They worked with a carbon fiber paper infused with lithium and demonstrated an energy density of 428 Wh/kg, along with encouraging performance in stability and potential ease of manufacturing.

South Korea’s SDN has developed new bifacial solar modules based on M10 wafers. It claims the new panels are the largest to be produced in South Korea.

The consortium says it intends to develop a simplified approach and best practices to produce 2T perovskite-silicon tandem solar products. The modules should have a bifacial design, glass-glass encapsulation, and a power output of over 300 W/m2.

South Korean researchers have developed a heat trading system including a ground-source heat pump, solar thermal collectors, a fuel-cell system, and two heat storage tanks for district heating at hours of peak solar production.

Scientists in South Korea have developed a forecasting model to better manage electric grids with high penetration of intermittent renewables. The model was tested using historic data from Pennsylvania-New Jersey-Maryland (PJM) grid in the United States, and shown to accurately forecast the availability of renewable energy resources up to one day in advance.

The US National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has certified that a South Korean research team has achieved a 25.73% efficiency rating with a perovskite PV cell based on alkylammonium chlorides. The champion device built by the scientists reached an efficiency of 26.08%.

Hanwha Qcells and Trina Solar say they have signed a patent licensing and transfer agreement with each other to end a dispute over their intellectual property.

LG has developed an air source heat pump with the capacity to heat 200 liters to 270 liters of domestic water. It uses R134a as a refrigerant and the pump has a coefficient of performance (COP) of up to 3.85.

Scientists in Switzerland and South Korea looked deep into the crystalline structure of a perovskite thin-film to better understand the mechanisms behind the sensitivity to heat and moisture that causes so many stability issues for solar cells based on these materials. They discovered a part of the crystal’s surface that is particularly vulnerable to moisture-induced degradation, and developed an approach to grow perovskite thin-films with strong resistance to moisture and thermal stress.

South Korean scientists have developed a way to determine when a floating PV system is safe to install in the field.