News

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.

March 17 is the deadline to bid for setting up grid-connected solar power plants in sizes of 0.5MW to 2MW on uncultivable land for selling the power to the State Discom.   

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. 

The stadium of German football club SC Freiburg will host a 2.4MW rooftop solar array that will be built with heterojunction modules provided by Swiss manufacturer Meyer Burger.

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.

The Bihar-based rural clean energy services provider has received US$4 million from India Renewable Energy Development Agency (IREDA) to construct 140 microgrids in the states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.

Researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology Bhubaneswar have developed a solar power system that can be easily moved between farms to pump water for irrigation. The kit comprises solar panels and an inverter to power a surface-mounted pump.

The Mumbai-based utility-scale solar power development and EPC company has announced it expects to commission 70MWp of ‘captive mode’ solar capacity in Chhattisgarh by mid-April. The capacity is part of a 168MWp open-access PV order from diversified business conglomerate HIRA Group.

Scientists in the United States developed a lithium-sulfur battery using a commercially available carbonate electrolyte, that retained more than 80% of its initial capacity after 4000 cycles. The group used a vapor deposition process which unexpectedly produced a form of sulfur that did not react with the electrolyte, overcoming one of the key challenges for this battery chemistry.