solar energy

Korean scientists have built a wafer scale radial junction solar cell with tapered microwires and a surface passivation layer made of aluminum oxide. The device showed the highest power conversion efficiency among the previously reported microwire solar cells.

The PV plant is the sixth phase of the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park.

United States-based engineering firm FTC Solar has unveiled a new self-powered solar tracking system which it says requires up to 36% fewer foundations than existing technologies and enables an estimated 5% greater energy output for a given parcel of land.

As Siemens commissions Germany’s second largest electrolyzer at the Energy Park in Wunsiedel, Engie has taken the Final Investment Decision for a project in Western Australia, scheduled for completion in 2024. Meanwhile, two reports shed light on the future of green hydrogen: on the demand side, the MENA region could use it to become the global leader of green steel; on the supply side, BNEF welcomes the support commitments coming from Europe and the United States.

The auction was scheduled to be held on September 16. Energy regulator ANEEL said the move was due to inconsistency in the auction management system.

The government announced new measures in favor of collective and individual self-consumption, validated by the Higher Energy Council on September 8.

South Korean authorities have already identified 2,267 cases of illegal subsidy use for renewable energy plants. They also ascertained that agrivoltaic projects presented as such had no agricultural activities being implemented.

Energy Vault’s EVx storage system is comparable to pumped hydro, using grid-scale renewable energy when supply is abundant to drive motors and raise 30-ton blocks on a six-arm crane tower, rather than water, up to a height. When power needs to be discharged back to the grid, the blocks are lowered, harvesting the kinetic energy.

A Dutch research group has developed a passivation technique for heterojunction solar cells based on a hydrogenated amorphous silicon layer. Their cell achieved an in-house-certified power conversion efficiency of 24.18%, an open-circuit voltage of 726.0 mV, a short-circuit current of 39.97 mA/cm2, and a fill factor of 83.3%.

Researchers at the University of Leicester have developed a new method of extracting silver and aluminum from end-of-life PV cells using iron chloride and aluminum chloride dissolved in brines. According to them, the cheap solvents retrieve up to 95% of the metals within 10 minutes, achieving a 98% purity of silver chloride.