Research

Finnish researchers have proposed the use of solar, wind, and storage to provide desalinated seawater to restore forests. Their model predicts that an additional 10.7 TW of PV would be needed to actually do this by 2100, leading to a cumulative carbon dioxide sequestration potential of 730 gigatonnes.

The Bern University of Applied Sciences in Switzerland has published the initial results of a survey on the durability and performance of residential PV inverters and power optimisers over a 15-year period. They found that more than 65% of the inverters did not present yield-relevant faults by their 15th year of operation.

Modular solar array manufacturer 5B will work with researchers from the University of Sydney to optimise the design of large-scale solar farms in a bid to minimise temperature-induced panel efficiency losses. The research project secured funding support in the latest round of the Australian Research Council’s Linkage Project Grants program.

Malaysian researchers have developed a system that can absorb heat from PV modules and transmit it to a nanofluid, in order to transform it into thermal energy and use it for different applications. The panels have an overall efficiency of 89%.

A research team at the Australian National University have claimed an efficiency of 30.3% for a tandem solar cell made by mechanically stacking a perovskite cell and a silicon cell. The achievement meets the first of three 2030 “stretch goals” set by the Australian government.

Solar and storage analyst Sunwiz is predicting an inversion of many of the trends that dominated the industry in 2022. While rooftop solar has bounced back after a disappointing year, Sunwiz founder Warwick Johnston tells pv magazine Australia, the utility segment’s position looks dire.

Scientists in Sweden have compared AC and DC topologies in PV-powered buildings using battery storage. They have found that DC distribution systems can achieve energy savings when they are combined with solar-plus-storage systems.

New data from Cornwall Insight Australia’s EV uptake model shows that under an extreme scenario, 22 million electric vehicles (EVs) are expected to be part of the National Electricity Market (NEM) states’ fleet by 2052.

The two dominant methods used in the industry to estimate soiling levels on solar projects go some way in mitigating losses, but there is plenty of scope for more accurate observation, as NRG Systems’ Alexandra Arntsen reports.

An international research group claims that raw materials and land availability do not present a real barrier for a global energy system with solar at its centre. They said that forecasts for PV growth should not have their axis on utility-scale power plants and instead consider vertical PV, agrivoltaics, and floating PV as the source of future big market volumes.