Technology and R&D

The AI-enabled robot is claimed to ensure faster and more efficient deployment of solar modules in utility scale projects.

Urban transportation is key to modern civilization. It has enabled humans to travel long distances and is one of the building blocks of industry and leisure. But it has come at a cost. In the first quarter of 2022, pv magazine’s UP Initiative will focus on the rise of e-mobility. We will examine urban transportation and the role electric vehicles, trains, and two- and three-wheelers can play in greening the electricity grid. In addition to technological innovation, we will also investigate market projections, the policies and infrastructure required, and the role solar and storage will play in taking this nascent industry full throttle.

The latest estimates of electricity generation costs in Australia have confirmed solar and wind continue to be the cheapest sources of new-build electricity generation, even when factoring in additional integration costs such as storage and new transmission infrastructure.

Australian green energy company Port Anthony Renewables’ oversubscribed capital raising exercise has put a fresh $3 million directly into its commercial scale hydrogen precinct ahead of a planned Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) listing next year. Meanwhile, Longi reportedly plans to build 1.5 GW of production capacity of electrolysers next year, up from 500 MW today.

A U.S.-Israeli consortium is developing synchroinverters – inverters that mimic a synchronous generator and are able to actively respond to the grid’s frequency changes while stabilising the voltage. The new devices are expected to do this simultaneously and provide grid stability services in less than 16.67 milliseconds.

An Italian company has developed a system that can store energy from wind, solar and grid electricity by compressing and using CO2 without any emissions. The system draws CO2 from an inflatable atmospheric gas holder, stores it, and uses it to produce power again, when demand for stored energy arises.

Scientists in the United States developed a computer simulator that can calculate the conversion efficiency of different solar cell materials and configurations – helping to guide research and optimisation of new cell designs. The simulator is available to researchers as an open-source tool to save time and spot the best opportunities for optimisation of any given approach.

The hype surrounding green hydrogen is real, but does the cost-reduction outlook for its production technologies live up to it? Christian Roselund looks at the technology, transportation, application and enabling policies behind the promising green energy carrier.

A consortium including Australian concentrated solar thermal power company Vast Solar has filed to patent a new tank design for thermal energy storage systems. The new design, it says, substantially mitigates the risk of tank failures which have been identified as one of the key shortcomings of the economical storage technology.

Australian hydrogen research and development company, Star Scientific, has announced its technology will be used to provide heat for industrial-scale sanitation in a pilot with Mars Food Australia.