Technology

The project includes a solar park coupled with what HDF Energy claims is the “largest green hydrogen storage of intermittent electricity sources” at 128 MWh. Importantly, the company also simultaneously announced expansion plans into Australia, saying its hydrogen technology will soon be available here, adding that it has “projects already in development for Australia”.

Storing hydrogen in carbon nanotubes and other nanostructures is still far from reaching commercial maturity. A Japanese research team, however, has developed a new simulation technology that may help better estimate the energy needed to favour the ideal interaction between hydrogen and its storage material.

Transmission network operator Transgrid has secured state government approval for a “critical” $2.28 billion electricity interconnector that will link the New South Wales and South Australian energy networks for the first time.

The 97%-efficient microinverter has a power output of up to 960 VA and APsystems claims it is the most powerful dual microinverter in the world.

The system combines software that applies a modulated electric current to the PV panels and an indium-gallium-arsenide (InGaAs) photodiode detector that takes a sequence of images of the panels. According to its creators, the proposed technique works with any lighting conditions and in all weather.

A 19.8 kW PV system is powering a telecommunications antenna at a French air control centre. When it produces more energy than needed, the surplus is used to produce hydrogen which is then utilised to produce new electricity via a fuel cell system and provide power to the antenna during a period of up to five days. For short-term storage, lithium-ion batteries are used.

The urgent global need for tens of terawatts of solar capacity to replace fossil fuels by 2050 signals it’s time to hone in on developing the most sustainable technologies — before reserves of silver, indium and bismuth dry up.

Solar cell production could consume every ounce of the world’s known silver reserves within a few years. One industry guru and his UNSW colleagues have set out the case for carefully considering what happens next.

Singaporean scientists have developed a special device that prevents the formation of dendrites in lithium-ion storage. The additional layer they created works as an interface on behalf of the negative electrode, to exchange lithium-ions with the positive electrode.

The German research institute has unveiled a novel interconnection technology for shingled PV modules that eliminates the need for electrically conductive adhesives and screen-printed busbars. It consists of an 8-μm-thick aluminium foil that is joined to the silicon nitride (SiNX) passivation via laser metal bond (LMB). When integrated in a solar module, the efficiency of the new interconnector improved by 0.7%.