Masdar begins work on 230MW solar park in Azerbaijan
Construction on the project is planned to be finalized by the end of this year. The solar facility will likely supply power to the nearby located Garadagh Industrial Park.
Newer, larger PV plants perform better, while older plants pick up steam with repowering
An American government lab sees utility-scale solar fleets degrading faster than projected at 1.2% per year, while newer and larger plants are degrading at just 0.7% per year. Older plants appear to be getting repowered in year seven, resulting in lasting performance increases.
SunDrive sets 26.07% efficiency record for heterojunction PV cell in mass production
Australian solar startup SunDrive has announced “a breakthrough” in mass production-compatible heterojunction technology, after recording an efficiency result of 26.07% with a silver-free, commercial-size silicon solar PV cell.
Storing renewable electricity with supercritical CO2 heat pump
Researchers in Spain have designed a pumped thermal energy storage system that uses supercritical carbon dioxide as a heat pump and a heat engine. The proposed system is claimed to achieve an efficiency of 80.26% and an LCOS of €0.116/kWh.
India installed 1.2GW of unsubsidized solar in 2021
India surpassed 5GW of cumulative, “open-access” solar capacity in December.
Temperature-dependent model to calculate solar LCOE
Developed by researchers in Saudi Arabia, the novel approach considers both the temperature-dependent power yield and the solar module time to failure (TTF), among other factors. According to its creators, the model can be applied to all kinds of module and cell technologies.
France provides incentives to landscape-integrated BIPV
The French authorities have so far selected four BIPV products that are eligible for the incentive scheme.
Spanish consortium wants to produce green hydrogen with sewage
The Zeppelin project is expected to generate more than 135,000 tons of green hydrogen from 99 million tons of waste and 50 million tons of municipal wastewater.
Australian electrolyzer invention enables green hydrogen under US$1.5/kg by ‘mid 2020s’
“We’re not talking about incremental improvement, this is a really giant leap,” Hysata CEO Paul Barrett told pv magazine Australia. Hysata is commercializing a breakthrough made at the University of Wollongong which effectively, Barrett says, invented a “brand new category of electrolyzer,” vastly improving efficiency.
Solarpack offers remote PV self-consumption to Spanish consumers
Solarpack’s click&go system relies on solar panels in its own projects, rather than in the homes of consumers, so households can consume renewable energy remotely. Clients can buy energy produced from their remotely owned panels for around €30 ($32.98)/MWh.
