An R&D team at Fraunhofer ISE has unveiled a new solar cell stringing machine that can boost cell performance 2% by using electrically conductive adhesives to fix solar cells to a foil substrate in a shingled pattern. The process reduces the number of manufacturing steps that soldering a connective ribbon would require, and imparts more efficient cell performance in several incremental ways.
Solar energy analysts at IHS Markit have identified the Top Solar Trends in 2019, including globalization, photovoltaics+storage, panel evolution, China and other hot spots.
Teams and individuals will compete for one year to propose their innovative solutions to the world’s plastic crisis.
A novel combination of high-grade spacecraft solar cell material and advanced light-concentrating lenses has yielded solar panels with a record 29% efficiency that may become available for general rooftop use by 2022. The crux in the commercialization of the planar optical micro-tracking technology will be cost-controlling manufacturing process, which is the current stage of study for Insolight, the cell developer.
Michigan’s Consumers Power has sparked a storm of protest over its inability to keep up with new solar requests for grid interconnection in its territory. Since the utility received over 2,400 interconnection applications in 2017 and 2018, compared with 215 in 2015, the increase in interconnection applications was “too substantial and too sudden” to cope with, it complained to the Michigan Public Service Commission.
Recycling made easy by Loop’s delivery service, for the small price of a refundable deposit fee.
The Children of the Sun, as the Spokane Tribe refer to themselves, are going solar this year with installations in 28 locations generating over 600 kilowatts of energy, thanks to the support of Wells Fargo Foundation, the US Department of Energy and non-profit Grid Alternatives. The project is being managed by the Spokane Indian Housing Authority, in Wellpinit, WA.
The National Renewable Energy Lab is building the first national database of albedo, or reflected light values, to help model the performance of bifacial solar panels, the highest-yield type of panel in the industry thus far. The database is an outgrowth of a large field test of bifacial panels at the lab, which includes a variety of fixed-mount and tracker systems and a mix of bifacial panels from different manufacturers.
The electric bike share company JUMP is flourishing one year after acquisition by Uber.
The early February breakthrough in California energy storage rules under Net Energy Metering will still take time to be codified, but the great news is that energy from storage can be sold to utilities as long as the storage equipment meets a new Underwriters Laboratory standard. Under Time of Use rates, households with certified storage capacity can store energy during the day and sell it back to the utility during peak periods in the evening.
