Solar energy news and discussion

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Researchers train AI to produce solar cells from perovskite in record time
https://techxplore.com/news/2023-11-ai- ... skite.html
by Will Wright and Iain Strachan, RMIT University

Researchers in Australia have harnessed AI to produce solar cells from the mineral perovskite in just a matter of weeks, bypassing years of human labor and human error to optimize the cells.

Study lead author Dr. Nastaran Meftahi, from RMIT University's School of Science, said teams of researchers worldwide were racing to make perovskite cells, which were cheaper than silicon, and thanks to recent advances, now stable enough for long-term commercial use.

"Until now, the process of creating perovskite cells has been more like alchemy than science. Record efficiencies have been reached, but positive results are notoriously difficult to reproduce," she said. "What we have achieved is the development of a method for rapidly and reproducibly making and testing new solar cells, where each generation learns from and improves upon the previous."

Members of the Centre of Excellence in Exciton Science based at RMIT, Monash University and Australia's national science agency CSIRO have removed human error from the equation in rapidly innovating solar cells with AI. Using data generated by the team's system, Meftahi, Dr. Andrew Christofferson and Professor Salvy Russo from RMIT developed a new model of machine learning.

The findings are published in the journal Advanced Energy Materials.

With a multimillion-dollar automated system for solar cell manufacturing being built by Dr. Adam Surmiak at Monash University, the model will be capable of predicting huge volumes of promising chemical recipes for new perovskite solar cells.

Surmiak and Professor Udo Bach at the Australian Centre for Advanced Photovoltaics and CSIRO will lead this new facility, which is currently under construction.

[wjfox]

The world’s largest single-site solar farm just came online

Michelle Lewis | Nov 17 2023 - 11:30 am PT

The United Arab Emirates has launched the Al Dhafra solar farm – now the world’s largest single-site solar farm – ahead of COP28.

The 2-gigawatt (GW) solar farm is 22 miles (35 km) from Abu Dhabi and features almost 4 million bifacial solar panels. It will power nearly 200,000 homes and eliminate over 2.4 million tonnes of carbon emissions annually.

It created 4,500 jobs during the peak of the construction phase, and the solar panels were installed at an average rate of 10 megawatts (MW) a day during construction.

Al Dhafra was jointly developed by Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company (Masdar), Abu Dhabi National Energy Company (TAQA), French power company EDF Renewables, and Chinese solar developer JinkoPower.

TAQA owns 40% of the project, and Masdar, EDF Renewables, and Jinko Power each own 20%. The solar farm will supply power to Emirates Water and Electricity Company (EWEC) following a 2020 power purchase agreement.

https://electrek.co/2023/11/17/worlds-l ... olar-farm/

[wjfox]

Solar module prices may reach $0.10/W by end 2024

NOVEMBER 27, 2023

Solar module prices may approach the threshold of $0.10/W by the end of 2024 or eventually in 2025, according to Tim Buckley, director of Australia-based think tank Climate Energy Finance (CEF).

“This would be nicely ahead of Dr. Martin Green’s $0.10/W by 2030 forecast made three years back,” he told pv magazine, adding that he came to this conclusion after estimating that new annual PV additions may reach between 600 GW and 1 TW already by the end of this decade. “I am very bullish on the rate of global growth in solar installs over the next few years. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has reminded everyone of the need for supply chain and energy security, particularly in terms of imported energy reliance.”

Buckley also noted the likely new climate accord by Chinese President Xi Jinping and US President Joe Biden, might see a formal call for a tripling of renewables capacity globally by 2030.

“At a time of massive capital investment cost blowouts, to be able to invest in deflationary solar is a massive global boon that will provide cost of living pressure relief as well as improved energy security,” he said.

https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2023/11/27/ ... -end-2024/

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24/7 solar towers could double energy output
https://techxplore.com/news/2023-12-sol ... utput.html
by Peter Grad , Tech Xplore

If you want to improve the output of solar energy systems, why not also run them at night? That's the question researchers in Qatar and Jordan addressed as they successfully devised a system that promises to more than double energy output of current solar power stations.

By combining two concepts—a solar updraft system and a cooling downdraft structure—researchers designed a model that could generate 753 MWh of energy annually. That's enough to power roughly 753 homes for about five weeks or 1,500 60-watt light bulbs nonstop for a year.

The origins of the system, referred to as Solar Tower Power Plant, go back to 1982 when Spanish engineers constructed a chimney-like tower with a mechanical turbine at its base. Air within the tower was warmed by absorbing solar radiation, similar to a greenhouse. As the air heated, it created an updraft that rose and activated wind turbines that in turn generated electricity.

That model was not widely adopted, mainly due to the enormous structural size that required massive acreage. It was also quite costly.

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[firestar464]

Ok then WHY ARE WE STILL USING FOSSIL FUELS IF THEY ARE MORE EXPENSIVE?

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Ok then WHY ARE WE STILL USING FOSSIL FUELS IF THEY ARE MORE EXPENSIVE?

Because we prop fossil fuels up with our tax dollars worth trillions of dollars yearly worldwide.

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Silicon heterojunction solar cells with 26.4% efficiencies fabricated using scalable deposition techniques
https://techxplore.com/news/2023-12-sil ... ncies.html
by Ingrid Fadelli , Tech Xplore

Solar technologies are helping to reduce carbon emissions and are set to continue contributing to the mitigation of climate change. One type of solar technology found to be promising for future photovoltaic applications is silicon heterojunction (SHJ) solar cells.

SHJ solar cells have numerous advantageous properties, including high power conversion efficiencies, lean and low-temperature processing, and low temperature coefficients. Nonetheless, most high-efficiency SHJ photovoltaics developed so far rely on expensive and non-scalable fabrication processes, which ultimately limit their large-scale deployment.

Researchers at Suzhou Maxwell Technologies Co. Ltd., Soochow University, New South Wales University and Dalian University of Technology recently developed new SHJ solar cells using more affordable and scalable fabrication processes. Their proposed solar cells, presented in a paper published in Nature Energy, were found to attain power-conversion efficiencies of up to 26.4%.

"The commercial success of high-efficiency SHJ technology remains impeded by challenges in the cost-effective translation to a production environment of several process steps, especially for a high transparent window-layer deposition and low-cost metallization," Prof. Xinbo Yang, co-author of the paper, told Tech Xplore.

"For the first challenge, great research efforts have been devoted to replacing conventional doped a-Si:H by doped hydrogenated nanocrystalline silicon (nc-Si:H), or its alloys with oxygen (nc-SiOx:H) and carbon (nc-SiC:H) to reduce parasitic absorption and series resistance."

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New 'n-i-p' perovskite/organic hybrid tandem solar cells with efficiencies over 23%
https://techxplore.com/news/2023-12-n-i ... solar.html
by Ingrid Fadelli , Tech Xplore

Engineers and material scientists have been working to develop increasingly advanced photovoltaic solutions, to convert as much solar energy as possible into electricity and help to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This has led to the introduction of various new solar cell designs, including all-perovskite tandem solar cells.

Researchers at Chonnam National University in South Korea recently introduced new monolithic perovskite hybrid tandem solar cells based on all-inorganic halide perovskites. These solar cells, introduced in a paper in Energy & Environmental Science, have achieved promising efficiencies of 23%.

"Single junction solar cell designs have some limitations, such as thermalization loss and transmission loss," Dr. Sawanta S. Mali, first author of the paper, told Tech Xplore. "To resolve these losses, we need to fabricate tandem solar cells, in which two absorbers like wide bandgap (WBG) and narrow bandgap (NBG) materials are stacked together with the help of suitable interconnecting layer (ICL)."

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Solar modules are piling up in warehouses as a massive supply glut has slashed prices by half, IEA says

Source: Business Insider

Jan 16, 2024, 3:04 PM EST

The US and European Union are seeing large stockpiles of solar panels, after soaring manufacturing capacity fueled a substantial oversupply, the International Energy Agency reported.

At the end of last year, an estimated 45 gigawatts of modules in the US and 90 gigawatts in the EU had piled up, nearly twice the forecasted installations for 2024, the report said.

The glut sent prices down nearly 50% in 2023 as manufacturing levels stood three times above those seen in 2021, and the IEA sees the oversupply continuing. "Based on the manufacturing projects pipeline, it will expand to over 1,100 GW in 2024 and 1,300 GW in 2028, staying at more than double annual PV installations over the forecast period," the report said.

Though other countries — namely the US, India, and the ASEAN region — are working to improve their output, China will account for 85% of the solar module manufacturing capacity expansion by 2028. However, further supply chain expansions will not be met with growing demand, and global manufacturing utilization rates will drop.

Read more: https://markets.businessinsider.com/new ... ory-2024-1

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Biden unveils ambitious solar plan for the West

Source: Deseret News

Jan 17, 2024, 5:04pm EST

A new roadmap released Wednesday by the Biden administration spells out a plan to bring a significant amount of solar resources to the West to meet his goal of a 100% clean energy grid by 2030.

The Bureau of Land Management also announced the next steps on several renewable projects in Arizona, California and Nevada, representing more than 1,700 megawatts of potential solar generation and 1,300 megawatts of potential battery storage capacity.

“The Interior Department’s work to responsibly and quickly develop renewable energy projects is crucial to achieving the Biden-Harris administration’s goal of a carbon pollution-free power sector by 2035 — and this updated solar roadmap will help us get there in more states and on more lands across the West,” said Acting Deputy Secretary Laura Daniel-Davis.

“Through historic investments from President Biden’s Investing in America agenda, the Interior Department is helping build modern, resilient climate infrastructure that protects.”

Read more: https://www.deseret.com/2024/1/17/24041 ... rgy-policy

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[wjfox]

China Installed More Solar Panels Last Year Than the U.S. Has in Total

Published: January 29, 2024

China is the world leader in renewable energy, including 40 percent of the planet’s entire solar capacity, reported Rystad Energy. The United States comes in second place with 12 percent.

Last year, China installed more new solar capacity than the total amount ever installed in any other country, Bloomberg reported.

“China’s solar sector is set to break records in the coming years. When installed capacity crosses the 500 gigawatts (GW) mark by the end of 2023, it will have taken 13 years to reach that milestone. That total, however, will be doubled to 1 terawatt (TW) in just three additional years,” Rystad Energy said.

According to China’s National Energy Administration (NEA), the country increased its solar capacity by 216.9 GW last year, eclipsing its record of 87.4 GW from the previous year, reported Bloomberg. That’s more than the U.S. total of 175.2 GW, estimates by BloombergNEF said.

In 2023, China’s new energy investments rose more than 34 percent, said NEA spokesperson Zhang Xing in a press release from the State Council.

https://www.ecowatch.com/china-new-sola ... -2023.html

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Quantum dot solar cells break efficiency record, silicon in its sights
By Michael Irving
January 30, 2024
https://newatlas.com/energy/quantum-dot ... cy-record/

One of the most promising, emerging solar cell technologies has received a major efficiency boost. Engineers at UNIST in South Korea have created quantum dot solar cells with a world record efficiency of 18.1%.

Quantum dots are essentially just tiny, circular semiconductor crystals that are incredibly efficient at absorbing and emitting light. The color of light they interact with can be set by changing their size, which makes them useful in display technologies or as sensors.

But where they might end up being most useful is in solar cells. Most commercial solar cells are made with bulk materials as the light-collecting layer, which means the whole surface absorbs the same wavelengths. But with quantum dots you can have multiple sizes that focus on a different part of the spectrum, boosting potential efficiency. As an added bonus, they’re cheap and easy to manufacture, and can even be made into a sprayable solution.

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Using thermotropic liquid crystals to enhance the efficiency and stability of perovskite solar modules
https://techxplore.com/news/2024-02-the ... ility.html
by Ingrid Fadelli , Tech Xplore

Solar panels and photovoltaics (PVs) are becoming increasingly widespread, contributing to ongoing efforts aimed at decarbonizing electricity production. Solar cells based on perovskites, a class of minerals that can leverage parts of the solar spectrum, have recently achieved highly promising energy conversion efficiencies and stabilities.

Despite these encouraging results, scaling up perovskite solar cells has, so far, proved to be challenging. Typically, their efficiency appears to significantly decline as their surface area increases.

Researchers at Northwestern University, the Institute of Chemical Sciences and Engineering (EPFL) and other institutes worldwide recently introduced a new design strategy that could help to improve the efficiency and stability of perovskite solar modules. Their proposed method, outlined in Nature Energy, entails the addition of thermotropic liquid crystals that protect solar cells from environmental stress factors and improves their stability.

"Our recent paper stemmed from the growing need for efficient and stable perovskite solar modules," Drs Yi Yang and Mohammad Khaja Nazeeruddin, co-authors of the paper, told Tech Xplore.

"We aimed to address challenges faced by previous research efforts, drawing on insights from advancements in materials science and photovoltaics. Our primary objective was to develop a fabrication approach that enhances efficiency and stability, pushing the boundaries of perovskite solar technology."

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