Research

Singapore researchers accelerated PV backsheet weathering to investigate flame spread behavior finding after six weeks, flame spread was 46% faster than on unweathered PV backsheets, saying current safety standards fail to account for long-term degradation.

Australia’s rooftop solar market continues to ease with the latest data from market intelligence outfit SunWiz revealing that national installation volumes dropped off by 12% in August compared to the previous month.

Renshine Solar says it has achieved a record 27.5% efficiency for a flexible all-perovskite cell and 23.0% on a 20.26 cm² panel.

Scientists from India have designed a novel electric vehicle system with a reported efficiency of 98.7%, using PV panels, a proton-exchange membrane fuel cell, battery storage and supercapacitor, with hopes to expand the concept to renewable-energy-based DC microgrids with vehicle-to-grid (V2G) capability.

The Netherlands Brunel Solar Team have crossed the Bridgestone World Solar Challenge finish line in Adelaide, i first place, after travelling 3,021 kilometres from Darwin to the South Australian capital, at an average speed of 86.6 kph, and just shy of 35 hours on the road.

With more than half of the 3,000 kilometres completed, the Bridgestone World Solar Challenge is a race in three with Dutch team Brunel leading the way from compatriots Solar Team Twente and Belgian defending champions Innoptus Solar Team.

Defending Belgian champion Innoptus is on track early to secure a third consecutive win in the Bridgestone World Solar Challenge, edging ahead of their rivals after day two of the 3,000-kilometre race across the Australian Outback.

A Sydney start-up working to get its liquid hydrogen-powered, long-range plane into commercial operation has landed $3 million in federal government funding to further develop the technology and showcase its full potential in real-world environments.

Chinese researchers, led by a research team from PV Technology Centre of Tongwei Co., Ltd, used a sequential annealing process in the fabrication of tandem solar cells, featuring a wide bandgap perovskite top cell on a fully-textured commercial crystalline silicon heterojunction bottom cell. The resulting device had a certified power conversion efficiency of 31.4%, outperforming a 29.43%-efficient control cell.

UNSW researchers have investigated the impact of two types of soldering fluxes on TOPCon solar modules under damp heat conditions and have found that “no-clean” soldering fluxes can cause severe corrosion of front silver-aluminum contacts. The researchers have also found that denser metallisation structures and lower aluminium content improve corrosion resistance.