Research

Scientists in China have created an optimization technique for an electric vehicle charging station that uses PV, battery storage, and a vehicle-to-grid operation. Considering the uncertainty of PV generation and the randomness of EV load, the system uses two-level optimization, day-ahead and intra-day.

The cell was fabricated with a 2.3 nm-thin layer of gallium oxide, a silver busbar aimed at improving charge collection and silicon nitride anti-reflection coating. It was encapsulated within a watertight 3D-printed box to ensure impermeability.

A Slovak research team has developed a mathematical model for determining the optimum tilt angle of a solar system ranging from 0° to 90°. Their framework was tested on an experimental setup in Czechia and attained 93.9% accuracy in predicting the system’s energy balance.

Scientists have developed a new optimization approach that combines both day-ahead optimization and real-time optimization to improve operations of PV-driven EV charging stations. The framework is based on the autoregressive moving average and the Latin hypercube sampling models.

Nuclear plants generated a record amount of power in 2024, surpassing record set in 2006, but industry optimism is not backed by economic data or investment, says the World Nuclear Industry Status Report 2025.

A Japanese research team has evaluated the affordability of photovoltaic-battery systems featuring heat-pump water heaters and air conditioning units across nine regions of Japan. They analyzed three price policies and two loan types, identifiying a tradeoff between net demand and cost according to the capacity of the solar-plus-storage system.

A new collaborative study between six universities, including three in Australia, has demonstrated how caesium bromide can significantly improve the efficiency of crystalline silicon solar cells.

The efficiency result was confirmed by the U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory. The module was fabricated with 13.4%-efficient kesterite cells designed with high film porosity and uniformity.

Scientists in Hungary have built a prototype of a thermal distillation device, supported by PV power. The PV panels use an IoT component that self-cleans when dust is detected and cools itself when the temperatures are too high. The system achieved a daily freshwater yield of 6.1 L/m2⋅day.

A research team from the U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory has analyzed n-type modules deployed in a 3 MW commercial PV project in an effort to assess the high degradation rate reported by the plant owner. The scientists found that ultraviolet-induced degradation (UVID) was a major factor affecting the facility’s performance.