United States

New research from Stanford University professor Mark Jacobson seeks to remove any doubts about grid stability in a world powered entirely by renewable energy. The latest study models 100% wind water and solar powered grids across the United States, finding no risk of blackouts in any region and also broad benefits in cost reduction, job creation and land use.

Developed by U.S. researchers, the proposed coating solution is claimed to effectively melt ice and snow with temperatures down to -35 degrees Celsius. It was fabricated by using medium-chain triglyceride oil to plasticize two common industrial polymer polyvinyl chlorides and tested at a pilot facility in Alaska.

A German-U.S. research group has proposed a new model to treat PV installations as permanent assets, with maintenance being performed at regular intervals. Through the new metric, it found more convenient to operate a module with 0.5% annual degradation for 35 years, and a module with 0.2% degradation, for 50 years.

NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test mission will roll out solar arrays and an electric propulsion system to redirect Earth-bound asteroids.

The lawsuit stems from a 2019 whistleblower complaint alleging that the company failed to properly notify its shareholders, customers and the public of fire risks associated with solar panel system defects over the course of several years.

Scientists in the United States placed fast charging for lithium-ion batteries under the microscope, finding that charging at higher rates can quickly damage the structure of a graphite anode, causing capacity loss even after a small number of cycles. By identifying the mechanisms causing this performance loss, the group can help point future research in the right direction.

A U.S.-Swedish research group has investigated the complex economic relationship between PV and heat pumps in cold climates under four different levels of electrification. It found that, compared to propane, solar heat pumps can reduce reduce costs by up to 20% and carbon emissions by 30%.

U.S. scientists have fabricated a cell via a two-step closed space sublimation process and by applying a seed layer to a soda-lime glass substrate coated with molybdenum via rapid thermal evaporation. They claim this facilitated the growth of a high-quality Sb2Se3 absorber layer with high crystallinity and large columnar grains.

Scientists in the United States turned to artificial intelligence to speed up their search for new materials for use in a flow battery. The group developed a machine learning algorithm that could search a dataset of potential materials and identify those with the ideal balance of different characteristics that make it suitable for use in a flow batteries. The group says its algorithm could be applied to other battery technologies, and even in other fields.

According to U.S.-based Grizzly Research LLC, many of the company’s European solar projects appear not to exist. Renesola has said it will review the report and address the key inaccuracies with detailed explanations on its upcoming earnings conference call.