Solar Technology & PV R&D News

Solar power installations out in the open are a common sight in many parts of the world, but how about household solar generators? A team of Swedish and Chinese scientists recently reported this might become part of our future after they successfully converted indoor light to electricity using organic photovoltaic cells.

The International Renewable Energy Association says the integration of hydrogen into the energy transition will not happen overnight and electrolysis costs will not be halved until the 2040s. That hydrogen and related products could revolutionize the world energy landscape, however, is not in doubt.

Researchers in the U.S. claim to have developed a manufacturing process based on the use of a latex balloon that could lead to the production of more efficient curved electronic devices, including hemispherical solar cells.

Scientists from Russia’s NUST MISIS institute and the University of Rome have discovered a two dimensional titanium carbide can improve the performance of a halide perovskite solar cell when added in microscopic amounts across the various cell layers.

Scientists at South Korea’s Daegu Gyeongbuk Institute of Science and Technology have set a new efficiency record of 11.4% for a cell based on a copper zinc tin sulfide thin film applied to a flexible substrate.

Research has found even short-lived, 10 to 15-year solar panels could provide enough return for bankable projects. The researchers believe panel costs, coupled with an industry mindset now fixed on the final solar energy price rather than costs per kilowatt installed, may open opportunities for PV products currently snubbed because of a short lifecycle.

The facility is set to open this year and will offer battery suppliers digitalization research and manufacturing consulting. Smaller manufacturers will be able to use shared laboratories for research.

A new report in Sweden suggests that renewables are an ideal source of power for marine vessels, based on a case study in which solar PV and proton-exchange membrane fuel cells, combined with a diesel generator, were used to reduce the greenhouse gas and particulate emissions of cruise ships by almost 10%

London-based markus kayser, a masters candidate in design products at the royal college of art, converts the raw resources of sunlight and sand into glass products with his fully automated, solar-powered ‘solar sinter‘ 3D printer.

A research team led by the University of Liverpool has developed a transparent conductive oxide material to replace tin with molybdenum. The results demonstrated better performance and potentially lower material costs than the transparent conducting layers used in today’s commercial solar cells.

This week pv magazine was in Amsterdam for the sixth edition of the BifiPV workshop, where the discussion focused on the impressive achievements made by bifacial solar modules and the challenges the technology faces as it moves toward mainstream adoption.

MIT scientists claim to have created a material 10 times more black than anything witnessed to date. It is said to be able to absorb more than 99.96% of incoming light and reflect 10 times less light than other superblack materials. The invention may be interesting for the development of black silicon PV technology and carbon nanotube-based solar cells.

A Swedish-Chinese research team has developed an organic cell said to be ideal for wide use in daily life to power internet of things-enabled devices. The cell could be used to power sensors that detect and measure moisture, particle concentrations, temperature and other parameters indoors.

Credibility comes not just from offering products that generate clean electricity, but also from the way in which those products are manufactured, says SMA Solar Technology CEO Jürgen Reinert. Here, transparency and sustainability are key. That’s why one of the world’s largest PV inverter producers has partnered with pv magazine’s UP sustainability initiative. In the following Q&A, Reinert lays out what SMA is doing to step UP its green game.

Researchers from the Ulsan Institute of Science and Technology have demonstrated a new method of fabricating perovskite-on-silicon tandem devices, using a transparent conductive adhesive to combine the two cells. The scientists have developed devices with demonstrated efficiencies of 19.4%, and propose strategies to bring that above 24% using existing technology.