Should I include a battery with my home solar project? Part 2: Costs and savings
An increasing share of residential solar arrays now include energy storage batteries. In part one of this two-part series, pv magazine reviewed the backup power features of batteries. In this part, costs, benefits and timing are evaluated.
Scaling up perovskite-silicon tandem solar cell performance
Scientists in Germany investigated various routes to optimizing cell design for perovskite-silicon tandem products. Beyond the perovskite layer itself, they note several other areas that should be optimized for tandem cells, taking silicon heterojunction processing as a starting point. The research identifies several routes to cut costs in cell production, including a significant reduction in indium consumption.
How to clean PV systems covered by volcano ashes
Spanish company Multisistemas E2 has explained how PV systems affected by the volcano eruption in the Canary Islands are currently being cleaned.
Solar Frontier abandons thin-film, launches 250 W monocrystalline panel
The Japanese manufacturer decided to close its CIS module production in October and has now launched its first 250 W monocrystalline product for the residential market.
Global online inventory of PV systems exceeding 10 kW in size
Through the inventory, an international group of researchers was able to identify 68,661 PV facilities, totaling 423 GW across 31 countries. According to the scientists, the online database provides insight into global trends for PV siting decisions, as well as into the gap between facility-level final investment decisions, construction start dates, construction completion dates and facility operations.
Chinese PV Industry: Government announces deployment of 30 GW of renewables in northwestern China
Furthermore, TBEA has announced a plan to invest in four solar power plants and Flat Glass has agreed to acquire two quartz mines.
High module prices make Italy an early victim of supply chain disruption
Sergio Matalucci reports for pv magazine from the Key Energy event in Rimini on how the Italian solar market is currently dealing with the module price hike and the supply change disruption. According to the president of Italian association Italia Solare, difficulties to source modules in the market have intensified over the last four months.
New tech to recover pure silicon from end-of-life solar cells
An Indian research group has used three different chemicals instead of commonly used hydrofluoric acid to separate silicon from the cell. The technique is claimed to be able to deliver recycled silicon with a purity of up to 99.9984%.
South Africa’s 2.6 GW renewables tender draws lowest solar bid of $0.02481/kWh
The South African authorities have published the list of the preferred bidders of the fifth round of the Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Procurement Program (REIPPPP). Around 2.58 GW of renewable energy capacity was allocated through the procurement exercise.
Longi improves efficiency of its heterojunction cell from 25.82 to 26.30% in just one week
The result was confirmed, once again, by Germany’s Institute for Solar Energy Research Hamelin (ISFH).
