science

A true next generation of solar cell technology is upon us. It is time to contemplate the benefits.

Romande Energie and Swiss research institute Agroscope are testing startup Insolight’s transparent PV panels in an agrivoltaic project. The modules are replacing the plastic covers used to grow strawberries and raspberries.

A 10 kW PV system has been feeding electricity into the Swiss power network since 1982. A research team has investigated the performance of the array’s first 35 years of life and has found that solar modules can target – at least in temperate climates – service lifetimes of 35 years, and that the bill of materials matters, a lot!

Developed by Solum Photovoltaic Innovation, the recharging station is being powered by a 7.6 square meter, walkable photovoltaic pavement coupled to a 2-4 kWh storage system. This configuration is enough to repower 12 scooters per day.

The research group led by Professor Martin Green has published Version 58 of the Solar cell efficiency tables. He spoke with pv magazine about the criteria with which these tables are compiled and the importance of result certification by independent third parties.

Developed by U.S. scientists, the Hydrogen Energy Storage Evaluation Tool (HESET) can assess the economic and technical characteristics of individual system components and the modeling of each hydrogen pathway. Furthermore, it can help understand how hydrogen storage can be used for various grid and end-user services.

Urban Electric Power has been accepted into EPRI’s Incubatenergy Labs program to prove the value of its new battery tech to some of the top utilities in the United States.

Scientists in the U.S. developed a new cathode design for lithium-ion batteries that they say could open up a range of different materials for further research. The group has high hopes that the discovery can quickly be brought to scale, easing some of the growing concerns around supply chains for battery materials.

Proper recycling strategies for perovskite modules could ensure sustainability and improve energy payback times, according to US researchers. They claim that the best recycled perovskite cell architecture could produce an energy payback time of about one month, versus 1.3 to 2.4 years for crystalline silicon modules.

Researchers from Hong Kong have applied a novel charge-reinforced, ion-selective (CRIS) membrane to a polysulfide-iodide redox flow battery they had built in 2016. The redox flow battery showed a capacity decay rate of just 0.005% per day for 1,200 cycles, and a lifetime with over 2,000 hours’ cycling, which the academics said corresponds to approximately three months.