Technology

The company has won an order from Power Grid Corporation of India Limited to install 765 KV gas-insulated substation bays at Phagi in Jaipur district. With this installation, the state will be able to evacuate around 1 GW of additional renewable energy from three solar parks at Bhadla, Fatehpur and Bikaner to various beneficiaries.

Product development company the Cambridge Design Partnership, working with compatriot solar business Solivus, has developed a curved solar module featuring an organic thin film. The design is based on Solivus’ desire to “create a product so attractive that people would be happy to have one in their garden”.

The project will be awarded to the bidder who quotes the lowest viability gap funding requirement. The upper limit for VGF to be quoted by a bidder is kept at Rs 130 million for 1 MW solar PV project with battery storage of 3 MWh.

The Chennai Metro Rail Limited seeks to procure 90 million units/annum of solar or solar-wind hybrid power, or 72 million units/annum of wind power through tariff based competitive bidding. Tariff ceiling is fixed at Rs 3.50/KWh for 25 years. Bidding closes on February 13.

The proposed model is said to perform better at energy prediction than software tools such as PVWatts, PVSyst or RetScreen. The approach was validated on two 5 MW PV plants in the same district of the Indian state of Rajasthan.

Chinese researchers have developed a pure EVA film, which they claim can enhance the conversion efficiency of conventional crystalline solar cells by around 0.50%. The film is able to convert UV light into strong visible light.

US scientists are proposing a new approach to calculating the optimum angular-tilt of PV panels for a planar surface at a particular site. In their view, the new technique may unlock innovative yield optimization methods for the installation of PV systems.

With this, the West African nation becomes the first International Solar Alliance (ISA) member to avail services of NTPC. Presently, there are six programmes of the ISA to develop solar capacities in member countries, which include agricultural pumps, mini grids, rooftop solar, large-scale grid connected projects, etc.

Applications are invited for setting up cumulative grid-connected capacity of 10 MW for Uttar Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam and 15 MW for Dakshin Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam. The solar power generated will be purchased by Discoms at a pre-fixed levelized tariff of Rs 3.11/KWh.

Materials that can recover energy wasted in the form of heat and convert that into electricity can pave the way for devices that can be coupled with new renewable technologies such as solar-thermoelectric and Lithium batteries.