Technology

In a new weekly update for pv magazine, Solcast, a DNV company, reports that solar irradiance fell by up to 30% in India’s northern regions during the southwest monsoon season, while central areas of the country made solar gains.

Three US manufacturers actively working to commercialize their respective perovskite-silicon tandem technologies make the case for tandem modules. CubicPV, Caelux and Swift Solar argue a commercial future for perovskites is inevitable, and they tell pv magazine the current policy environment could work in the technology’s favor.

Scientists in Belgium have investigated how perovskite absorbers used in solar cell degrade under three different stress test types and have found that the interface between the perovskite layer and the electron transport layer suffers from weak thermomechanical stability, which creates the conditions for performance losses.

Researchers in Spain investigated effective separation of encapsulants from PV glass with a focus on melting behavior and resistance to the hot knife-method of delamination. The results indicated that thermoplastic polyolefin encapsulants were the easiest to remove from the PV glass.

India’s climate tech ecosystem now counts over 800 startups, ranging from solar and electric mobility pioneers to agri-tech and water management disruptors. Many of these startups begin as humble experiments.

Global hydrogen investment has topped $110 billion, up $35 billion from last year, with total committed capacity exceeding 6 million tons (metric tons) per year (mtpa), says the Hydrogen Council.

In recent months, solar energy has been recognised by the EU Commission as critical grid infrastructure, with a growing awareness around cybersecurity in particular raising questions about Europe’s energy security. In this article, solar cybersecurity specialist Uri Sadot – Managing Director at SolarDefend and Elected Chairman of SolarPower Europe’s Digitalization Group – discusses what PV installers, developers, EPCs and system owners can do to better protect themselves – and the grid.

The researchers state that their carbon-negative process has the potential to reduce green hydrogen production costs to $1 per kilogram, while also generating biochar and patented biofertilizers as valuable byproducts.

The Chinese manufacturer said the result was achieved thanks to new perovskite crystallization additives and high-mobility carrier transport layer materials.

The India Energy Storage Alliance (IESA) has welcomed the streamlining of the GST rate for all advanced batteries under heading 8507 to a uniform 18%, replacing the earlier regime where lithium-ion batteries were taxed at 18%, while other chemistries attracted a 28% GST.