French railway operator signs 25-year solar PPA
SNCF has agreed to buy 207 GWh of annual electricity supplies under a 25-year power purchase agreement with France’s Reden, which is building four solar plants to provide electricity to the railway operator.
Inverted perovskite solar cell with 21.85% efficiency via surface modulator
A UK research group has used surface modulators to reduce non-radiative recombination in perovskite solar cells. They used 2-TEAI organic halide salt to build a cell with high power conversion efficiency and stability.
New polymer-based battery electrodes with high stability
UK researchers have developed organic electrode materials to integrate redox-active organic molecules into long-chain polymers. The new electrodes exhibit better cycling performance in lithium-ion batteries, with no apparent capacity decay over more than a thousand charge-discharge cycles.
Equinor acquires Danish solar developer
Equinor is set to fully acquire developer BeGreen, which has a project pipeline of more than 6 GW in Denmark, Sweden and Poland.
IBC solar modules may drive TOPCon out of market by 2028, says tech expert
Radovan Kopecek, an expert on interdigitated back-contacted (IBC) tech, says that IBC solar panels could capture more than 50% of the global market by 2030, potentially pushing TOPCon products out of competition. He told pv magazine how this transition might materialize and discussed the tech advancements that could make it possible.
Silicon heterojunction solar cell with 23.83% efficiency via molybdenum oxide hole collector
Dutch scientists have achieved a record-breaking efficiency for a silicon heterojunction solar cell fabricated with a hole collector based on a molybdenum oxide (MoOx). They used plasma treatments to increase the presence of oxygen in the MoOx layer, to improve its electronic properties.
UK battery energy storage acquisitions heating up
About 550 MW of battery energy storage systems (BESS) deals have been signed in the United Kingdom over the past few days. Most recently, Masdar acquired London-based storage developer Arlington Energy.
SPIC, Ocean Sun switch on offshore floating solar-wind pilot
State Power Investment Corp. (SPIC) has started operating the world’s first offshore floating solar plant integrated with an offshore wind turbine, at a pilot site off the coast of China’s Shandong province. It features floating PV tech from Norway’s Ocean Sun.
The Hydrogen Stream: Researchers identify light-triggered coupled oxygen evolution mechanism
Researchers in Singapore have developed a new light-triggered coupled oxygen evolution mechanism that builds on past oxygen evolution research. Oman, meanwhile, has announced a new hydrogen strategy.
German developers move forward on plans for 21 MW floating solar array
The city of Cottbus, Germany, has passed a resolution to expedite the development of a 21 MW floating solar project. It will be built on a former mine site, with construction set to begin in the spring of 2023.
