Technology

The comparison of two solar cladded roofs in Sydney, Australia, one bare beneath its panels and the other adorned with native grasses and plants, has found the panels on the green roof were, on average, 3.63% more efficient, producing an average daily output 13% greater than the conventional roof. The improvements are believed to stem from the lower temperatures on the green roof, thanks to its plants – which also provided a plethora of additional benefits.

The giga-scale factory, located in the Bengaluru city of Karnataka, will initially have the capacity to manufacture about 500 MW of electrolysis equipment per annum.

The battery was built with a new catholyte and a symmetry-breaking strategy, which consists of changing the symmetry of the redox-active organic molecules instead of using the common approach of attaching a hydrophilic functional group.

Hyderabad-based Allox Minerals looks forward to scaling up lithium titanate (LTO) anode and lithium ferrophosphate (LFP) cathode material production for electric vehicle batteries as the demand arises. It produces these materials using the economical method developed by International Advanced Research Centre for Powder Metallurgy & New Materials (ARCI). The company is also keen on forward integration up to battery assembly.

Next Energy and Marubeni are developing a blockchain tech for PV module inspection – with the support of the Japanese government – which they claim is able to provide data on a panel’s traceability and components as well as verifying that the data were not modified or tampered with.

The Indian solar developer said the Oman facility would use 3 GWp of solar and 0.5 GWp of wind energy to produce 2,400 tons of green ammonia daily and approx. 0.9 million tons annually. Construction is planned in phases with an investment of $3.5 billion over the next three years.

Developed by the Korea Institute of Energy Research (KIER), the “non-destructive” technology is claimed to enable the recovery of 100% of a module’s glass and to allow the reuse of silicon for producing new solar cells with an efficiency of 20.05%.

Australian National University researchers claim to have set a world record for bifacial solar cell efficiency that they say could boost the energy output of solar farms by 30%.

Siemens has deployed its EnergyIP meter data management system for over 2,00,000 smart meters in North Delhi, enabling the timely and accurate collection of electricity meter data digitally. The advanced metering infrastructure will pave the way for the deployment of Smart Grids across the country.

An Indian-Malaysian research group has investigated the effectiveness of several passive cooling techniques for solar panels, including the placement of plants around the modules or coir pith underneath them, both of which, surprisingly, offered good performance in terms of temperature reduction and power yield.