Research

France’s indoor organic PV specialist Dracula Technologies and Swiss-headquartered semiconductor manufacturer STMicroelectronics demonstrated a battery-free illuminometer at the Embedded World trade fair in Germany last week.

Researchers in Taiwan have discovered that in polysilicon production the crucible angular speed affects the oxygen concentration near the crucible wall, which in turn affects the wafers’ mechanical and electrical properties. They simulated a Czochralski process for an ingot with a diameter of 200 mm diameter and a length of 700 mm.

An international research team has placed a neem oil tank on the back of solar modules for cooling purposes. The proposed solution reportedly improves PV panel performance by up to 17.8%.

The Norwegian PV planning software company said it added the new PV degradation maps to pinpoint site locations with favorable climatic conditions.

TU Delft researchers have proposed a new approach for solar cell manufacturing that implies gauging wafer thickness depending on the regions where the cells and modules will be deployed. They also suggested to adopt test conditions that are representative of the outdoor working condition of solar cells in an alternative to standard testing conditions.

Researchers in China have developed a photovoltaic cold storage system that is reportedly able to improve refrigeration capacity and ice storage rate. The system is said to ensure a stable cooling system operation for the refrigeration needs of agricultural products.

Power Panel offers a PV and thermal storage solution that combines simple, safe and easy to manage hot water with advanced thermoplastic technology and architecture.

SGC and SMO say they plan to install 100 MW of solar waste-to-energy systems in Australia. They aim to deploy a total of 50 waste-to-energy units in the next three years, with plans to scale up to 1 GW in the future.

Researchers in China have fabricated a carbon-based perovskite solar cells that achieves almost the same efficiency as perovskite counterparts based on gold electrodes while also providing higher stability. The novel devices use a playdough-like graphite (PG) electrode that combines the deformable property of carbon paste and the solvent-free property of carbon film.

New research from Germany showed that PV-powered heat pumps could require less surface than their solar thermal-driven counterparts in district heating networks. The scientists also found that increasing energy prices would have a minimal impact on the viability of both concepts.