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.

The latest supply chain map from Sinovoltaics tracks growth across Southeast Asia, with module capacity reaching 78.8 GW, and 58 production projects tracked.

The latest irradiance sensor solution from Japan-based EKO Instruments provides continuous measurements in the field. Well-suited for bifacial PV systems, it supports the measurement of global horizontal irradiance, diffuse horizontal irradiance and direct normal irradiance, even in reflective and cloudy conditions.

The Chinese module maker and the Australian National University utilised phosphorus diffusion gettering and another defect mitigation strategy to improve the quality of n-type wafers. The proposed process contributed to improve the material quality especially towards the tail-ends.