Technology and R&D

Two Australian companies working in solar R&D have been awarded over $2 million (USD 1.3 million) for a project seeking to commercialise ultra-low-cost, flexible perovskite solar cell fabrication. The solar cells will be “graphene-enhanced” and are to be produced in Halocell’s Wagga Wagga plant in NSW.

Western Australian solar window company ClearVue Technologies says it has confirmed the scalability and “commercial viability” of its second-generation integrated glazing units after a mass production run using a standard manufacturing line at a factory in China.

An international research group has applied for the first time integral backstepping control (IBC) as a control strategy for PV systems connected to microgrids. Through a series of simulations, the scientists found the new approach can provide better results than classic backstepping control (BC) and other techniques.

Jason and Kara are Canadian overlanders from the “Everlanders” channel on YouTube. Overlanding is self-reliant travel on the road, driving to remote places across international borders. pv magazine caught up with Jason between legs of their latest road trip.

Australian solar technology company Allume Energy estimates that its behind-the-meter Solshare platform can help residents in multi-unit buildings save up to 40% on their electricity bills.

New application programming interfaces datasets from Google are designed for solar marketplace websites, solar installers, software-as-a-service developers, and any user looking to understand rooftop solar potential of a particular address.

Australian energy technology startup RayGen has officially opened a 4 MW solar and long-duration energy storage project in Victoria, describing it as the world’s “highest efficiency PV project” operating at utility scale.

Ongoing innovation in PV cell technology will have major impacts as solar is deployed at a “multi-terawatt scale” over the next two decades, according to a global team of scientists.

Jaguar Land Rover and Wykes Engineering are building a 2.5 MWh storage system with electric-vehicle batteries taken from Jaguar I-PACE cars. The large-scale system will store wind and solar at an undisclosed location in the United Kingdom.

Australia continues to rank poorly for investment in science and research, spending just 1.68% of its GDP – well below the OECD average. This underinvestment is a growing problem for the clean energy industry, with fellow nations actively poaching innovations to capture future manufacturing markets.