Research

A research team from Sweden has developed a new iron-based molecule, which it says has the potential for further cost reductions in solar cells, and can also function as a photocatalyst to produce fuel.

A Japanese research team claims to have tailored an electron-accepting unit, which has been successfully used in an organic semiconductor applied in a solar cell device that showed high PV performance.

The organic methylammonium (MA) molecules in the cell were replaced with inorganic elements such as rubidium and cesium. The planar perovskite cells resulting from the research have an efficiency of more than 20%.

Although the “solar flow battery” is currently considered too expensive by its own creators, a further improvement of its design and the use of emerging solar materials and new electrochemistry may open new opportunities for this kind of technology.

The scientists have shown how the control of the molecular structure of a semiconductor polymer makes it possible to obtain a PV conversion efficiency of more than 10% for an organic solar cell.

By double stacking a perovskite-silicon solar cell and using the cell in a glass-on-glass bifacial solar module, scientists model that a 30-36% efficient solar module can be attained.

Arizona State University researchers have determined that a 32% efficient perovskite-silicon tandem cell could produce electricity at the same price as cutting-edge 22% efficient panels in the most cost-competitive of situations

A group of Russian researchers has found out that under resonance conditions, the Pyramid of Giza can concentrate electromagnetic energy in its internal chambers. This discovery, the scientists claim, may also be used to develop high efficient solar cells.

Two months after announcing its intention to turn to renewables, the Spanish oil giant has for the first time formed a technological tie-up that integrates a partner into the company’s value chain.

Perovskites, a tempting low-cost alternative to crystalline silicon based solar cells, could be moving closer to commercial production thanks to a new way of applying the critical electron transport layer (ETL) pioneered by an international team of researchers.