Solar Cells

Scientists in China have developed a large-area perovskite solar panel by utilizing diphenyl sulfoxide (DPSO) as an electron acceptor. The device was fabricated via slot-die coating, and featured a parallel-interconnection architecture.

Furthermore, Luoyang Glass reported first-quarter net profits of RMB136 million (US$21 million) and TBEA Xinjiang New Energy announced the settlement of a dispute over a 99 MW wind farm.

Scientists in China took a closer look at the role of defects in limiting the performance of perovskite solar cells, demonstrating a screening effect that could be tuned to make material defects “invisible” to charge carriers, greatly improving cell performance. Using this approach they demonstrate a 22% efficient inverted perovskite solar cell, and theorize several new pathways to even higher performance.

The municipal government of Barcelona is supporting the development of a 50-square-meter pilot project to test the feasibility of PV-paving tech.

Scientists in the United States discovered that hydrogen plays a leading role in the formation of defects in a perovskite film, which limit their performance as PV devices. The discovery, according to the researchers, offers further insight into observations already established by trial and error and could help to push the impressive efficiency achievements already made by perovskites even higher.

The document is written to have “universal application” across product lines intended for export to the U.S. market, and is expected to be adopted by equipment manufacturers and U.S. importers.

PV manufacturers seeking Indian state funding for new production lines will need to meet minimum scale and module-efficiency requirements, according to new government guidelines.

The 2021 edition of the International Technology Roadmap for Photovoltaics (ITRPV) was published today by German engineering association VDMA. The report, which forecasts technology trends across the solar industry, expects PERC to maintain its position as the dominant cell technology and notes that large wafer formats are here to stay.

Researchers in Germany claim to have overcome the main challenge for the development of large-area perovskite PV modules – scaling up from the cell to the module level. They achieved an efficiency of up to 16.6% on a module surface of ​​more than 50 centimeters squared, and 18% on a module with an area of 4 centimeters squared.

Polysilicon prices rose to RMB145-150/kg this week, prompting a varied response from the major wafer suppliers. Longi won a tender to supply modules for a 100 MW agrivoltaic project held by Hubei Energy Group and GCL-Poly sold off a further 127 MW of solar project capacity to two state-owned enterprises.