Hybrid Silicon & Perovskite Bifacial Solar Cell Achieves 30.2% Efficiency
Researchers in the Netherlands have combined perovskite and conventional solar cells into one bifacial solar panel with an efficiency greater than 30%.
Researchers in the Netherlands have combined perovskite and conventional solar cells into one bifacial solar panel with an efficiency greater than 30%.
Picktricity of Massachusetts has installed thin film solar panels on the top of oil storage tanks owned by Sprague Energy. The results have exceeded all expectations.
An operator of a custom dolphin observation boat has combined Sunflare solar panels with lithium-ion batteries for what may be the first charter vessel of it kind, says the Key West owner. Dubbed “The Squid,” the vessel was designed for tour operator Honest Eco by David Walworth, an MIT-educated boat designer and builder.
China is eyeballing a sharp increase in the price of solar panels this year, but the solar field is wide open for expansion in other areas.
Alta Devices’ record-setting solar cell has just begun a one-year test by NASA in the latest Materials International Space Station Experiment (MISSE-X) flight investigation, launched in November on board the NG CRS-10 mission. NASA is testing Alta Devices solar technology at the Space Station in order to evaluate the technology for future NASA low-Earth orbit missions, including powering CubeSats, a trending, small, inexpensive satellite design.
Advances in thin-film and other new solar technologies are expected to be driven by the demand for lightweight, high-power solutions in the EV, aerospace and wearable solar markets, reckons Matthew Reese, the author of a new study on the evolution of the technology.
Tampa Electric won state approval this week to add 260 more megawatts (MW) of solar to its generation fleet by January and to recover the cost. The five separate projects in this endeavor comprise the second phase of the utility’s blazing solar program, which will involve an $850 million investment that will add 600 MW of solar across 10 installations by 2021.
There may be a growing number of solar application ideas that die off before going mainstream, never having tapped enough technology, financial backing, and market savvy to last. But it seems solar roof shingles is not one of those. Dow withdrew from the market, but Exasun and Tesla moved in. Now, there’s also a smart new set of patent-pending thin-film CIGs solar shingles being offered by Sunflare Solar, based in La Verne, California. The company refers to the cell technology as Capture 4.
Leading US solar manufacturer First Solar published its first-quarter earnings report late last month, depicting a strong start to the year with increased sales of $567 million and the commencement of Series 6 module production in April which, in turn, led to the company’s announcement of a new solar manufacturing plant in Perrysburg, Ohio.
Mark Osborne, the Senior News Editor for PV Tech, revealed last week that the fourth quarter of 2017 saw the highest ever recorded levels of new solar PV manufacturing expansion announcements for a quarter, totaling around 40 gigawatts across the thin-film, solar cell & module assembly, and integrated cell & module manufacturing segments.