Technology

An international group of scientists has fabricated an inverted perovskite solar cell that claims both high power conversion efficiency and a promising high degree of stability. A champion cell achieved a power conversion efficiency of 25.3%, with an encapsulated version retaining 95% of the initial efficiency after extensive heat and humidity testing. 

Sandia National Laboratories and CSolPower have started researching the use of landscaping gravel as a thermal energy storage medium.

Scottish Renewables, a major renewable energy lobby group, says it welcomes the Scottish government’s commitment to increase the nation’s total installed PV capacity by 4 GW to 6 GW by 2030.

Researchers in the United Kingdom have tested the perfomance of cadmium telluride solar cells deployed on the AlSat-1N 3U CubeSat satellite from 2016 to 2022. Their findings show the devices exhibited no significant performance changes, nor any sign of delamination. 

Bangladeshi scientists have developed a high-efficiency perovskite solar cell with 26.96% efficiency, an open-circuit voltage of 1.0478 V, and a fill factor of 81.35%.

Recom’s newest solar panels feature efficiencies of up to 23.2% and a temperature coefficient of -0.24% per degree Celsius. The company is offering a 30-year power output guarantee for 91.25% of the initial yield.

Scientists in Palestine say that controlled tests show that bifacial solar panels produce 6.81% more electricity than monofacial PV modules.

Boamax, the Chinese module manufacturer, recently announced it will release two new bifacial hetero junction solar modules. Both products feature a temperature coefficient of -0.28% per C.

Researchers in Italy have used protective buffer layers in perovskite solar cells to mitigate damage during the sputtering of indium tin oxide in the production process. They claim the buffer layers were able to fulfill this mission without impairing the cell’s average visible transmittance.

Scientists in Finland have developed a new method of assessing the long-term performance of vertical bifacial PV systems in Nordic conditions. The experimental setup consisted of a east-west oriented vertical array equipped with power, temperature, and plane-of-array irradiance sensors, wind speed and global horizontal irradiance sensors, and a weather station.