Technology

The Housing SA Tesla VPP is being expanded to include a trial of 20 homes unsuitable for solar installation. The SA Government is offering free Tesla batteries to such homes to show how participation in the VPP with a battery alone can still deliver significant savings.

A German PV system owner has developed a simple solution intended at preventing the birds from nesting under the modules.

Last week, testing specialists PV Evolution Labs launched its latest Module Reliability Scorecard, which names more than 100 products from 26 manufacturers as top performers, after being put through their paces in extensive lab testing. This year’s scorecard reveals an increase in modules seeing at least one failure during the testing procedure, with newly added mechanical stress procedures causing the greatest number of failures.

The Chinese module manufacturer said the 0.35% improvement in efficiency was obtained through material upgrades integrated into the cell process and fabrication. The result was confirmed by China’s National Institute of Metrology.

A Swiss start-up has created a containerised movable PV system that is designed to be easily relocated to allow the use of solar energy in locations where a fixed installation is not an option. The solution is based on a racking technology which can include two racks able to host up to 30 solar panels.

TransGrid and ElectraNet have shovels at the ready to begin work on the long-planned and hard-won Project EnergyConnect, which will link three Australian states with much needed capacity for transmission of renewable energy.

The pursuit of higher conversion efficiencies is an eternal theme in the PV industry. Among all the links in the chain, cell technology is the most fundamental and decisive element. As we look beyond the established PERC technology, whether heterojunction or TOPCon will become the dominant “next-gen” solar cell among China’s manufacturing giants is emerging as a balancing act between incumbent and upstart, reports Vincent Shaw from Shanghai.

Victoria is accelerating plans to carve out a share of the evolving global hydrogen market, calling for Expressions of Interest from parties keen to play a role in the newly launched Greater Geelong Hydrogen Technology Cluster.

Canada-based Enertopia filed provisional patents for technology that it said could boost PV system output by 10% or more and reduce panel heat stress.

In the proposed system, the optical element is placed symmetrically at the centre of the solar panel in order to increase the length of the effective light collection region. Each hologram is claimed to be able to separate the colors of sunlight and direct them to the solar cells within the solar panel.