Technology and R&D

Australia’s national science agency will seek to the address some of the challenges associated with storing and transporting hydrogen by developing an off-grid, portable hydrogen generator designed to recover the zero-emissions fuel from a liquid carrier at the point of consumption.

Prolux Solutions has developed a redox flow battery with a charging and discharging capacity of 4 kW and 5 kW of peak power. It is designed to be coupled with PV systems in homes with high consumption profiles.

The annual SiliconPV Conference came to TU Delft in the Netherlands in April, and offered an important health check for the science and technology behind solar energy. pv magazine was on site to hear the latest from researchers reaching for higher efficiency through tandem cells and other innovations; looking to understand and mitigate cell degradation mechanisms; and working to cut down solar technology’s consumption of rare and expensive materials.

The new series comes in seven versions, with power outputs between 560 W and 590 W. The power conversion efficiency ranges between 21.7% and 22.8%

US space agency NASA has discovered that perovskite solar cells tested in space exhibit less degradation than reference devices tested on Earth. The agency acknowledged that it is uncertain about the specific factors in the space environment that contributed to the superior performance of the perovskite absorber film.

The ACT government has awarded over a million dollars to support the commercialisation of technologies from six upcoming renewable companies. Round three of the territory’s $12 million innovation fund includes support for a startup which has developed a 3D printer capable of printing electronics.

GoodWe plans to bring a range of building integrated photovoltaics (BIPV) products to Australia, announcing a partnership with specialist Umax Energy. The manufacturer this month released the details of its lightweight new panel, and plans to introduce an integrated solar roof tile to the Australian market.

Arka Energy’s new outdoor gazebo provides 2.4 kW to 4.3 kW of residential solar power via monocrystalline PERC solar tiles.

Enphase Energy’s latest IQ home battery energy storage system is set to land in Australia in July, making it the first region outside the company’s home US market to see the system. The batteries feature triple the peak power and double the continuous power of the previous model.

Chinese researchers have developed a solar cell using CsSnI3 perovskite, known for its unique phase transitions and near-IR emissions. By simulating the device with various electron transport layers (ETLs) and hole transport layers (HTLs), they determined that the optimal cell could be created using a titanium oxide (TiO2) ETL and a nickel(II) oxide (NiOx) HTL.