Research

German researchers claim to have reduced ribbing effects in using slot-die coating for the production of perovskite solar cells. The results are reportedly the most efficient solar cell built with this technique to date.

A local environmental organization has published pictures of the stranded array which appeared last week on two beaches. Hong Kong’s Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department is currently investigating where the installation came from.

A consortium led by the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems (ISE) will test grid-forming inverters at a large-scale PV facility in southern Germany. The aim of the first tests is to examine the performance of the devices under real operating conditions, stress factors, and typical stress profiles.

Researchers in Singapore have built a large-area perovskite PV panel that reportedly retains more than 90% of the initial efficiency after more than 850 hours. They used a hydrophobic, all-organic salt to modify the top surface of large-area, slot-die coated methylammonium-free halide perovskite layers.

Norway’s Over Easy says its pilot vertical PV system in Oslo achieved remarkable performance throughout a snowy winter. In 2022, the vertical array generated 1,070 kWh per kilowatt installed, which the company says compares to around 800 kWh per kilowatt installed for a conventional rooftop array.

Researchers at IIT Mandi have developed high-quality, uniform thin films of nickel oxide on the silicon substrate using an aerosol-assisted chemical vapor deposition technique, with nickel nitrate as the precursor material.

Scientists from the United States and Brazil have developed four different ways to estimate the temperature of floating PV modules. They validated the models with temperature measurements from a floating solar plant in Brazil.

Sunmaxx says Fraunhofer ISE has confirmed the 80% efficiency of its new photovoltaic-thermal (PVT) module. It consists of 108 PERC half-cells in M10 format, with 400 W of electrical output and 1,200 W of thermal output.

Austrian scientists have created a lab-scale, solid-state, oxygen ion battery based on mixed ionic electronic conducting (MIEC), which is a special class of non-flammable electroceramic materials. The battery has around 30% of the energy density of lithium-ion batteries but can purportedly achieve a longer lifespan.

Researchers from Oak Ridge National Laboratory have developed a free, web-based application that calculates the savings and energy efficiency of residential ground-source heat pumps compared to gas heating.