Technology

Earlier this year, Singapore surpassed its 2020 target for 350 MW of installed PV, and has set itself a more ambitious goal of 2 GW for the coming decade. pv magazine recently spoke with Thomas Reindl, deputy CEO of the Solar Energy Research Institute of Singapore (SERIS) – and also the lead author of a 2020 update to the institute’s PV Roadmap for Singapore report – to catch up on the latest developments in the city-state’s PV market.

A report by Finnish company Wärtsilä has estimated the potential impact if every dollar committed to a non-renewables energy sector recovery was instead funnelled to clean power.

The 2020 Prime Minister’s Prizes for Science took place virtually this year, but that won’t quash the recognition of Xiaojing Hao, UNSW’s solar pioneer who took home (or rather, received at home) the prize for Physical Scientist of the Year. Hao’s work in thin-film photovoltaics is leading the world in fashioning new and sustainable applications for solar PV.

Industrial and academic partners are developing a battery inverter which can be grid connected under normal operation but can also use nearby renewables generators to form an island grid, for whole-area uninterrupted power supply.

As Australia’s home battery market begins to catch up to its install residential solar capacity the opportunity for large-scale virtual power plants is verging on reality. Indeed, Solar Service Group’s new Solar + Battery Members’ Plan could see Australia host the world’s largest virtual power plant next year.

An international research team has analyzed all existing cooling technologies for PV panels and has indicated the current best options and future trends of research. According to its findings, active water cooling, although expensive and not particularly practical, is the most effective cooling technique while passive cooling systems, despite being easy to apply, have still limited possibilities.

BOC will compress green hydrogen produced at newer than new HyP SA, which taps the state’s currently over-abundant solar generation, and deliver it to industrial customers in South Australia and Western Australia. The arrangement is expected to seed a foundation market for the carbon-free product and demonstrate its viability.

Never heard of CEP.Energy? The new green energy fund is set to become a renewable powerhouse, installing gigawatts of solar, plus batteries big and small across industrial estates and retail centres around the NEM. Institutional investors are making this virtual-power-plant vision a reality.

While the desire for data to support smarter grids is clear, actually digitalising said data to make it communicable around Australia is proving a thornier operation. Ultimately, it requires Australia’s grid operators to undergo nothing short of a metamorphosis – transitioning from operating networks to becoming network operators.

A group of Australian researchers have made a significant discovery in the fight against light-induced phase segregation in next-generation solar cells, a somewhat counter-intuitive solution encapsulated in the famous final words of German polymath Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: “More light!”