Solar Cells

In a new weekly update for pv magazine, OPIS, a Dow Jones company, provides a quick look at the main price trends in the global PV industry.

Average sales prices of Chinese power cells at the end of 2023 were half of what they were at the start of the year, according to TrendForce. Despite the drop, the research firm says prices should stabilize in the second half of 2024.

PV is often touted as the progressive titan of the renewable energy industry, but when Walburga Hemetsberger joined Europe’s solar lobby giant SolarPower Europe in 2019 as CEO, she faced a problem: her board was male-only. On the cusp of her fifth year in an industry where she is a rare species – a woman in charge – she explains why she fought for more female representation in the solar sector from the belly of her business group.

The triple-junction solar cell is based on a 15.0%-efficient top perovskite solar cell modified with potassium thiocyanate (KSCN) and methylammonium iodide (MAI). According to its creators, the triple-junction device displays a remarkable power conversion efficiency improvement compared to state-of-the-art devices.

According to data collected by AleaSoft Energy Forecasting, wind and solar energy production in Italy and the Iberian Peninsula fell in the last week of 2023 contributing to price rises, but in the new year electricity demand is expected to increase in all analyzed markets.

In a new monthly column for pv magazine, the International Solar Energy Society (ISES) explains how reducing glass thickness in PV modules may fracture the solar industry, impacting PV module and PV tracker suppliers, engineering, product and construction companies, and PV plant owners.

Solar Philippines says it has broken ground on what it touted to be the world’s largest solar array – a 4 GW solar park spread across 3,500 hectares of land in the northern part of the country.

Scientists from Finland have built an experimental system that allows the drying of woody biomass with solar thermal energy and a heat pump. They claim PV may play a complementary role in the proposed setup.

Ireland’s Department of Education says that just over 900 schools out of 1,600 eligible facilities have signed up to participate in the government’s first round of the Solar for Schools Programme, a nationally funded scheme to cover the costs of 6 kW roof-mounted solar installations.

Tin selenide solar cells have so far reached limited efficiencies in real applications. Bangladeshi scientists claim to have found a way to drastically improve their performance by adding a copper/indium/selenium (CIS) thin-film layer and a back surface field (BSF) layer.