Technology

Mass adoption of electric vehicles presents opportunities for significant battery deployment to support our grid and power our homes. Developing and adopting standards for vehicle-to-grid bidirectional technology is needed to accelerate the path to these opportunities, reports pv magazine USA’s Tim Sylvia.

French start-up Solar Cloth is planning to scale up capacity at its module production facility near Cannes. The factory will produce 17.6%-efficient flexible solar modules integrated into textile supports.

Ohmium has collaborated with India’s CSIR-Central Electrochemical Research Institute as it aims to make green hydrogen not only cost-effective but also scalable to meet the world’s demand. The sponsorship enables it to leverage CSIR-Central Electrochemical Research Institute’s deep expertise and resources for further development of electrolyzer technology.  

The Israeli robotic cleaning specialist will deploy its E4, T4 as well as the latest H4 products for the Indian developer’s 400 MW solar project that combines fixed-tilt and single-axis trackers.

The funding is aimed to boost women’s access to affordable green housing in India. It includes up to $58 million direct loan by the Asian Development Bank and a $10 million concessional loan by the Canadian Climate Fund for the Private Sector in Asia.

US start-up mPower Technology is scaling up its flexible crystalline silicon solar module technology for spatial and terrestrial applications. The back-contact solar panels consist of micro-singulated silicon dies that are “hyper-interconnected” in series or in parallel. The devices have efficiency ranging from 22 to 23% depending on the size or applications.

Scientists in Germany designed a poly-Si on oxide (POLO) interdigitated back-contact (IBC) solar cell integrating photon crystals and found this architecture has the potential to reach a power conversion efficiency of over 28%, which would be 1% higher than the current practical limit set by the scientific community. They also found that by improving passivation, the efficiency may be raised up to 29.1%.

Silicon carbide (SiC) has promised inverter makers higher power density, higher efficiency, and a total bill of materials that comes in closer to its more established rival in silicon. Has SiC finally arrived? Tristan Rayner spoke to the people at the forefront of the wider-bandgap material to find out the back story and what’s next.

The Green Hydrogen Policy is designed to promote green hydrogen and green ammonia projects with provisions like 25-year waiver of inter-state transmission (ISTS) charges and ISTS connectivity on priority for renewable energy capacity set up for the purpose. 

French start-up Rosi Solar has developed an industrial solution claimed to be capable of recovering high purity silicon, silver and copper contained in end-of-life PV modules. The company’s technology is based on a pyrolysis process that makes it possible to isolate the different metals from the cells.