pv magazine recently spoke with Bartosz Majewski, CEO of Menlo Electric, a Poland-based solar distributor operating in Europe, about high inventory levels of solar panels in Europe.

US scientists have achieved a breakthrough in PV cell tech by creating a 24 cm2 perovskite-silicon tandem solar cell. It positions a lithium fluoride interlayer between a hole transport layer and the perovskite absorber to reduce shunting losses.

The European Parliament’s Internal Market and International Trade committees have approved and amended a proposal to create a global list of regions and industries with a high risk of forced labor.

Dutch company Triple Solar has launched a residential thermal battery with a heat loss rate ranging from 0.67 kWh/day to 0.84 kWh/day. The new product can reportedly provide hot water at temperatures ranging from 45C and 55C, with the minimum heat source temperature ranging between 65C and 80C.

Scientists in India have fabricated indoor bifacial perovskite solar cells that purportedly achieve remarkable power output per single cell. The devices also reached a bifaciality factor of 0.73.

The new solar panels have flexible properties and are suitable for roofs with loading restrictions. According to their creators, the modules showed high reliability under both high temperature and high humidity conditions.

Japanese scientists have designed a cooling system that reduces the solar panel operating temperature at the air inlet of the module. It consists of a dew-point evaporative cooler that supplies the near-saturation air to wet air channels that are attached to the back of a PV panel.

New figures provided to pv magazine by Rystad Energy reveal that the amount of unsold panels in European warehouses may have more then doubled between mid-July and the end of August, and that it may reach 100 GW by the end of the year. Analyst Marius Mordal Bakke explained that PERC modules bought and stored by a European distributor for $0.23/W in March are now facing an average spot price of $0.16/W today, which could very likely be $0.15/W next month.

An international research group has analyzed a vertical bifacial agrivoltaics system in a drought-stricken part of Chile. They say that the solar array can improve water efficiency for crop irrigation, while the vertical system configuration optimizes PV power generation throughout the day, minimizing curtailment.

The two research institutes said the multijunction solar cell is based on silicon, gallium indium phosphide (GaInP) and gallium arsenide (GaAs). The device utilizes a specially designed metal/polymer nanocoating that reportedly optimizes the distribution of light scattering beyond the total internal reflection critical angle in the cell.