Solar Cells

Developed by U.S. scientists, the cell is claimed to achieve an equivalent bifacial efficiency of more than 20% with an open-circuit voltage of more than 2 V. The choice of the bifacial architecture is intended at increasing the device’s power yield in order to offset the high costs for producing the CdSeTe sub-cell.

A Danish-German research team has shown that using cadmium sulfide as an n-type partner in heterojunction tandem solar cells based on selenium does not produce satisfying results. The team has discouraged other scientists from following the same path.

Australia is blessed with an incredible solar resource, but it will be diminished by global warming.

The worldwide solar boom is proving so profitable the polysilicon manufacturer is even thinking of turning to PV panels to power its manufacturing operations, rather than cheap coal.

Developed by Spanish scientists, the proposed system design is said to be able to achieve water temperatures above 70 degrees Celsius and to cover around 85% of the annual sanitary hot water consumption of a household with six people.

The solar module has an area of 31.5cm² and is relying on perovskite cells with an efficiency of 22.9%. It was encapsulated with a special ionogel that is claimed to enhance the module’s impact resistivity and stability, as well as to reduce the possibility of lead leakage.

Given the Withhold Release Order (WRO) and the potential anti-circumvention tariff challenges, U.S. module supply risk is material, the analyst firm said in a note to clients.

Scientists in India conducted a techno-economic analysis for a 100 MW production line for carbon-electrode perovskite solar modules, located in Himachal Pradesh, India. The analysis concludes that, even at the smaller scale, this emerging technology could achieve cost levels comparable with today’s silicon solar products.

Scientists in Germany investigated various routes to optimizing cell design for perovskite-silicon tandem products. Beyond the perovskite layer itself, they note several other areas that should be optimized for tandem cells, taking silicon heterojunction processing as a starting point. The research identifies several routes to cut costs in cell production, including a significant reduction in indium consumption.

The Solliance consortium has built a solar cell in a four-terminal tandem configuration that combines a 17.8%-efficient highly near-infrared transparent perovskite cell with a prototype of an 11.4%-efficient c-Si interdigitated back contact silicon heterojunction cell developed by Panasonic.