An international team of researchers used a novel interfacial treatment to improve the performance of perovskite solar cells across a range of narrow and wide bandgap single junction, tandem, and mini-module samples. An all-perovskite tandem solar cell demonstrated its use with a certified efficiency of 29.5%.

Researchers in Netherlands and Belgium have created a numerical model to simulate the moisture ingress in PV modules. Their research work showed that climate in which a PV module is installed has a much higher impact on the moisture ingress than the choice of materials for the encapsulant of the backsheet.

An international research team studied the solar PV impact of emissions from a coal-fired power plant in the Atacama Desert, Chile finding that after five months of exposure, the deposited dust on co-located PV panels reached a maximum of 1.63 mg/cm2 with a 23 % reduction in photocurrent. The accumulation at the co-located plant was 3 times greater than nearby PV sites with similar coastal climate conditions.

Researchers at Thailand’s Vidyasirimedhi Institute of Science and Technology demonstrated a novel hydrogel that has high cooling effect on silicon PV panels.

To make it easier to adopt building integrated PV as a glazing material, a group within the IEA Photovoltaic Power Systems Program (IEA-PVPS) has tackled the solar heat gain coefficient calculation for BIPV. It is part of IEA PVPS Task 15 international standardisation efforts.

UNSW researchers were able to recover silicon from end-of-life solar PV panels pure enough for re-use in silicon carbide-based devices. Their novel multi-step method, that includes thermal and chemical processes, also recovers silver.

An international team has developed a new technique to recycle perovskite solar cells (PSC) made on glass substrates using a water-based solution. Tests showed that the recycled cells were as efficient and stable as the original devices.

N-ink, a spinoff of the Linköping University, has developed conductive inks that can be used in the charge extracting layer of organic solar cells and in transport layers of perovskite solar cells.

The researchers built the cell with a hole transport layer (HTL) based on PEDOT:PSS and were reportedly able to reduce the losses caused by this compound with the utilisation of a thiocyanate additive. The champion lab-sized device achieved an open circuit voltage of 0.875 V, a short circuit current density of 31.84 mA cm−2, and a fill factor of 83.23%.

Researchers at the Australian National University are part of the international team that has built an all-perovskite tandem solar cell based on a wide-bandgap top perovskite cell with a 20.5% efficiency. The 1 cm2 scale tandem device achieved the highest efficiency yet reported for all-perovskite solar cells of this size.