Solar energy news and discussion

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Solar panel efficiency to increase 50% with first production of ‘miracle’ tandem cells

World’s first commercialisation of perovskite solar cells follows years of breakthroughs with the material

18 hours ago

A South Korean firm has announced the world’s first production line for perovskite-silicon tandem solar cells, which promise an increase in efficiency of between 50-75 per cent compared to standard solar panels.

The commercialisation of solar cells that use perovskite follows years of breakthroughs with the mineral, which has been hailed as a ‘miracle material’ for its potential to transform various industries, including renewable energy.

Seoul-based Qcells said it will invest $100 million to roll out the next-generation solar cell technoloy, which until now has been limited to lab tests and academic research.

The investment will fund a pilot production line at a factory in Jincheon, which is projected to be operational by late next year.

“This investment in Jincheon will mark an important step in securing technological leadership,” said Qcells CEO Justin Lee.

https://www.independent.co.uk/tech/sola ... 42287.html

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Researchers achieve record 19.31% efficiency with organic solar cells
https://techxplore.com/news/2023-05-eff ... cells.html
by Hong Kong Polytechnic University

Researchers from The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) have achieved a breakthrough power-conversion efficiency (PCE) of 19.31% with organic solar cells (OSCs), also known as polymer solar cells. This remarkable binary OSC efficiency will help enhance applications of these advanced solar energy devices.

The PCE, a measure of the power generated from a given solar irradiation, is considered a significant benchmark for the performance of photovoltaics (PVs), or solar panels, in power generation. The improved efficiency of more than 19% that was achieved by the PolyU researchers constitutes a record for binary OSCs, which have one donor and one acceptor in the photo-active layer.

Led by Prof. Li Gang, Chair Professor of Energy Conversion Technology and Sir Sze-Yen Chung Endowed Professor in Renewable Energy at PolyU, the research team invented a novel OSC morphology-regulating technique by using 1,3,5-trichlorobenzene as a crystallization regulator. This new technique boosts OSC efficiency and stability.

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The US solar market is projected to triple in size by 2028

Jun 7 2023 - 9:01 pm PT

Due in part to strong Q1 2023 numbers and a surge in demand, the US solar market is now expected to triple in size over the next five years, according to a new report.

According to the “US Solar Market Insight Q2 2023 report,” released today by the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) and Wood Mackenzie, the solar market is now expected to achieve a total installed solar capacity of 378 gigawatts (GW) by 2028.

The US solar industry installed 6.1 GW of solar capacity and had its best first quarter in history in Q1 2023, due to the easing of supply chain challenges and delayed solar projects moving forward.

The Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act has also spurred a surge of new manufacturing announcements, with US module capacity expected to rise from fewer than 9 GW today to more than 60 GW by 2026. At least 16 GW of solar module factories are under construction as of the end of Q1 2023.

Despite customer hesitancy, the residential segment installed 1.6 GW of solar capacity in Q1 2023, a 30% increase from Q1 2022.

https://electrek.co/2023/06/07/us-solar ... t-5-years/

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The largest floating solar farm in North America is officially online

Michelle Lewis
Jun 7 2023

New Jersey is host to an 8.9 megawatt (MW) floating solar farm – the largest floating solar array in North America.

NJR Clean Energy Ventures owns and operates the floating solar farm, which covers 17 acres of the Canoe Brook reservoir in Short Hills, New Jersey. NJR CEV and New Jersey American Water held a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the project yesterday.

The floating solar farm consists of 16,510 solar panels, and the clean power they generate is enough to power 1,400 homes annually. It will provide around 95% of the power needs for New Jersey American Water’s Canoe Brook Water Treatment Plant.

Floating solar consists of PV panels attached to rafts. The water keeps the solar panels cool, thus increasing efficiency, and the panels also reduce evaporation to nearly zero.

Robert Pohlman, vice president of NJR Clean Energy Ventures, said, “Floating solar technology creates new opportunities for underutilized bodies of water, allowing space that would otherwise sit vacant to enable large-scale renewable energy generation, which helps to bring the benefits of clean energy to even more customers.”

https://electrek.co/2023/06/07/largest- ... h-america/

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In a First, Caltech's Space Solar Power Demonstrator Wirelessly Transmits Power in Space
June 01, 2023
https://www.caltech.edu/about/news/in-a ... r-in-space

A space solar power prototype that was launched into orbit in January is operational and has demonstrated its ability to wirelessly transmit power in space and to beam detectable power to Earth for the first time.

Wireless power transfer was demonstrated by MAPLE, one of three key technologies being tested by the Space Solar Power Demonstrator (SSPD-1), the first space-borne prototype from Caltech's Space Solar Power Project (SSPP). SSPP aims to harvest solar power in space and transmit it to the Earth's surface.

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For the first time in decades, Congress seems interested in space-based solar power

As far as legislative moments go, the passage of a minor amendment to an innocuous US House resolution on Wednesday was not exactly groundbreaking. But for space exploration enthusiasts, the amendment offered by US Rep. Kevin Mullin, D-Calif., was kind of a big deal.

That's because, for the first time since the 1970s, the idea of space-based solar power has been addressed legislatively by the US Congress.

"Although the technology to gather solar energy in space and send it to the surface as electricity is not yet commercially viable at scale, we already know from early research that it is possible," Mullin said during a meeting of the Science, Space, and Technology Committee on Wednesday.

Mullin was seeking to amend House Resolution 2988, a bill instructing NASA and the US Department of Energy to collaborate on key areas of research and development, including propulsion, artificial intelligence, astrophysics, Earth science, and quantum computing. He sought to add space-based solar power to the list. The amendment passed overwhelmingly by a bipartisan committee vote.

https://arstechnica.com/space/2023/06/f ... lar-power/

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Breakthrough Solar Cell Technology Exceeds Crucial 30% Efficiency Threshold
With an improved power conversion rate, these cells could give the solar panel industry a boost.
By Adrianna Nine July 11, 2023

Multiple research teams have produced solar cells that topple the long-awaited 30% efficiency milestone. In a pair of research papers published Thursday, two groups share the processes by which they’ve designed perovskite-silicon tandem solar cells with increased open circuit voltages, allowing for heightened power conversion that could boost the solar panel industry.

Put simply, a solar cell’s efficiency rate refers to how much sunlight it can convert into electricity. If a particular solar cell has an efficiency rate of 25%, a quarter of all the sunlight that hits the cell will become usable electricity. Most commercially-available solar cells (the ones that make up the panels on top of your house or your local university’s parking lot) possess a maximum efficiency of 24.5%. In comparison, experimental cells have historically tapped out at 27%. As a result, researchers have long aimed to produce a cell that can hit 30% or more—and they’ve finally got it.

https://www.extremetech.com/energy/brea ... -threshold

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Improving high-temperature stability of perovskite solar cells
https://techxplore.com/news/2023-07-hig ... cells.html
by Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne

Perovskite solar cells (PSCs) have gained attention for their high power-conversion efficiencies and low-cost solution processing. However, ensuring their stability at high temperatures has been a challenge, as the points of contact between their different layers ("interfaces") are susceptible to degradation, leading to energy loss and decreased performance.

In a new study, researchers have found that they can minimize PSC degradation at high temperatures by using fluorinated aniliniums, a class of compounds used in pharmaceuticals, agrochemicals, and materials science. The study was led by Michael Grätzel at EPFL, Edward Sargent at the University of Toronto, and Kenneth Graham at the University of Kentucky. It is published in Science.

The researchers incorporated fluorinated aniliniums in the "interfacial passivation" step of PSC fabrication. Interfacial passivation is a technique used to enhance the stability and performance of interfaces between different layers or materials to minimize defects, reduce charge recombination, and improve overall efficiency and stability.

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Researchers fabricate phase-heterojunction all-inorganic perovskite solar cells with an efficiency above 21.5%
https://techxplore.com/news/2023-08-fab ... solar.html
by Ingrid Fadelli , Tech Xplore

Solar technologies have become increasingly advanced over the years, with the discovery of new photovoltaic materials and designs. While solar cells based on a mixture of organic and inorganic halide perovskite materials have been the topic of numerous research studies and achieved promising performances, these cells are often difficult to fabricate on a large-scale.

Researchers at Chonnam University in South Korea recently introduced an alternative solar cell design fully based on inorganic perovskites. Their solar cells, introduced in Nature Energy, could be easier to fabricate on a large-scale, while nonetheless achieving promising power conversion efficiencies (PCEs).

"Previous efforts in the perovskite community mostly used single junction and single phase for the fabrication of perovskite solar cells using hazardous antisolvents," Dr. Sawanta S. Mali, lead author of the paper, told Tech Xplore.

"Instead, we introduced an anti-solvent free hot-air method for fabrication of beta (β)-CsPbI3 phase in ambient condition and gamma (γ)-CsPbI3 phase has been deposited on to β-CsPbI3 bottom layer using simple thermal evaporation method. Both these two phases playing key role in charge extraction process which results in >21.5 % power conversion efficiency."

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An affordable and scalable strategy to fabricate efficient silicon heterojunction solar cells
https://techxplore.com/news/2023-08-sca ... licon.html
by Ingrid Fadelli , Tech Xplore

Silicon heterojunction (SHJ), solar cells based on a heterojunction between semiconductors with different band gaps, are among the most promising photovoltaic technologies. So far, these cells have exhibited remarkable power conversion efficiencies and good operational stabilities.

Despite their great potential and notable advantages, SHJ solar cells are typically based on rare and expensive materials, which limits their widespread deployment. In addition, their fabrication is often incompatible with existing manufacturing processes, further complicating their large-scale production.

A team of researchers at Suzhou Maxwell Technologies Co., Nankai University and other institutes in China recently introduced a new design and fabrication strategy that could reduce the costs of SHJ solar technology, without drastically reducing their efficiency. In a paper published in Nature Energy, the team presented highly promising results achieved by solar cells that were produced using their proposed strategy.

"The limited supply of rare indium and the high cost of silver paste are among the most important problems that SHJ solar cells will face," Cao Yu, Qiaojiao Zou and their colleagues wrote in their paper. "To overcome the obstacle of indium-based transparent electrodes for efficient SHJ solar cells, we successfully prepared cheap and mass-producible undoped tin oxide (SnOx) electrode materials by sputtering at room temperature."

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