Grid-forming tech on centre stage as search for system resilience steps up
Maintaining grid stability becomes more challenging as the share of intermittent renewables grows in the electricity generation mix, but system resilience is essential to continued solar deployment. Grid-forming inverters offer a solution, and their capabilities are increasingly being tested and relied upon in key energy markets globally.
Voltavate plans Melbourne facility to transform battery manufacturing
Australian battery technology startup Voltavate will build a new base in Victoria to advance its novel approach to battery manufacturing and accelerate the transition from laboratory development to real-world production.
Chinese researchers achieve world-record efficiency of 27.17% for inverted perovskite solar cell
The proposed inverted perovskite solar cell design reduces band misalignment and electron accumulation, suppressing recombination losses and enabling high efficiency in both small-area devices and scalable modules.
UNE accelerates silicon wafer recycling using AI computations and robotics
Researchers from the University of New England’s Australian Institute for Strategic Artificial Intelligence are using artificial intelligence and powerful supercomputers to assess potential solvents to separate silicon wafers with minimal contamination.
Premier Energies unveils 600-630 W all-black TOPCon solar modules
The Indian manufacturer said its new all-black panel series features a power conversion efficiency of up to 23.32% and a bifaciality factor of up to 85%.
Longi announces world record efficiency of 28.13% for silicon solar cell
Longi claims to have achieved the world’s highest efficiency for a silicon solar cell. The result was confirmed by Germany’s Institute for Solar Energy Research Hamelin.
Queensland researchers develop lead-free perovskite material
University of Queensland researchers have developed a safe and scalable vapour-based manufacturing process for fabricating high-quality lead-free perovskite material with fewer performance-limiting defects.
New irrigation tech helps reduce water use in agrivoltaics
Spanish researchers found that combining agrivoltaics with regulated deficit irrigation can cut tomato irrigation water use by about 50%, while improving land-use efficiency through simultaneous crop and solar energy production.
Low-power ride-through tech keeps green hydrogen flowing in standalone PV–electrolyser
A UNSW-led research team proposed two low-power ride-through strategies for standalone PV–electrolyzer systems to maintain stability during sudden solar power fluctuations without using battery storage.
Cooling PV modules with hydrogel-coated paper
A Vietnamese research team has developed a low-cost passive cooling system for PV modules based on hydrogel-coated paper that combines water flow and interfacial evaporation to reduce operating temperatures. Outdoor tests showed temperature reductions of up to 14 C and efficiency gains of up to 16.8%, with stable operation achieved using both freshwater and natural seawater.
