PV

South Korean researchers have developed a process to produce ultra-thin wafers without sacrificing any of the substrates. Their technique is based on a new approach involving the use of plasma-assisted epitaxial growth, in order to increase internal defects and porosity, rather than reduce them.

The Chint group has also agreed to sell a portfolio of distributed solar projects with a capacity of 493 MW.

According to Chinese researchers, using abandoned coal mine goaves for pumped hydro facilities in combination with large scale solar and wind is not only technically feasible but can also provide an efficiency of 82.8% in yearly operation cases. They applied the model to wind and solar-rich northwestern and southwestern China.

IHS Markit predicts that global installed solar PV capacity will grow by 20% to over 200 GW in 2022, despite a difficult cost environment. PV system costs are expected to resume their downward trend from 2023, when more polysilicon capacities will come into operation.

EDF is planning to build a 240 MW floating PV project at Laos’ largest hydropower dam. French engineering company Innosea has joined the ambitious project as a provider of support for wave and anchoring studies.

The Indian authorities have announced plans to provide more funding to help more manufacturers under its production-linked incentives scheme, which is designed to support gigawatt-scale manufacturing of high-efficiency solar modules.

The procurement exercise’s final average price is 3% lower than that of the previous tender of the same kind. Around 636 MW of PV capacity was allocated by the French authorities.

The U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory says in a new report that costs for all types of PV systems continue to fall, although it notes that balance-of-systems costs have increased or remained flat across sectors this year.

Scientists in Japan and Europe investigated the long-term stability of perovskite solar cells utilizing layers of mesoporous carbon, building on previous work demonstrating the strong potential of this approach. This latest work demonstrates a light-soaking effect, which allowed them to fabricate cells that retained 92% of their initial performance after 3,000 hours in damp heat conditions – which the researchers say is equivalent to 20 years in the field.

A U.K. research group is developing an anti-soiling solution produced via a chemical process compatible with glass manufacturing. The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council is providing $1.6 million of funding for the project.