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The ESS battery systems have a prescribed design life of 25 years, but the battery modules, electrolyte, plumbing, and other components may well last for decades longer with proper maintenance.

Meyer Burger plans to start selling a new building-integrated PV product from 2022. It says the solar tiles have a high energy yield, with simplified installation and the ability to also provide heating. German engineering company paXos designed the tiles.

China’s coal crunch looks set to see the nation turn to the Australian coal it has kept stranded via its year-long unofficial import ban. The news isn’t great for CO2 emissions, but could ease the significant impacts being felt by the Chinese solar industry.

German equipment supplier M10 and research institute Fraunhofer ISE will unveil a new prototype stringer for shingled module layouts at the Intersolar Europe trade show later this week. Employing an offset layout for the shingles, the approach promises a relative efficiency gain of up to 6%, compared to a conventional half-cell module.

Singapore-based VFlowTech has secured funds to scale up manufacturing of its vanadium redox flow batteries. The company currently offers three modular products that can be scaled to multi-megawatt-hour systems.

The system has dimensions of 834×417×1,766 mm and weighs 205 kg including the design panel. It achieves an electrical efficiency of 56% and can be connected with a hot water storage unit.

Dansk Solenergi ApS has developed a 13.6 kg tile that can be used for both new buildings and building renovation. The device is currently being produced in Denmark, where the company operates a 40 MW line.

A group of international researchers has observed how non-radiative charge recombination occurs in organic PV and claims to have identified a potential solution that could bring this solar tech closer to crystalline silicon in terms of power conversion efficiency.

Closed-loop pumped-hydro storage offers more chances to minimise environmental effects on water sources and overcomes the problem of finding suitable sites. According to an Australian research team, closed-loop systems could prevail on open-loop systems in the future and this trend is confirmed by another group of scientists from the United States.

JA Solar published data comparing its own modules, based on the 182mm wafer format, with others utilising the larger 210mm size over a six month period in field testing. The data show that the smaller of the two formats reached an average daily energy yield almost 2% higher. According to JA Solar’s analysis, the higher currents produced by the 210mm modules led to higher resistance, and more energy lost as heat.