The phovoltaic sunshade was deployed on the facade of a factory owned by Polish aluminum system provider Aliplast. The movement of the PV blinds is regulated by a controlling system linked to a weather station installed on the roof.

National Renewable Energy Laboratory researchers have studied which tech offers the lowest levelized cost of energy to provide the US Western Interconnection grid with electricity when wind and solar are not available. They assumed 85% renewables penetration and determined that geologic hydrogen storage and natural gas combined-cycle plants with carbon capture storage are the cheapest options for 120-hour discharge applications. 


The Tiger Neo panel has a power conversion efficiency of up to 22.1% and a temperature coefficient of -0.30% per Celsius degree. The product is made with 182mm wafers, half-cut cells, and has a power output ranging from 590 to 620 W.

Scientists in Bangladesh have evaluated how a 50 MW floating PV plant could be integrated with the 230 MW Karnafuli Hydroelectric Power Station, located at the Kaptai Dam on the Karnaphuli River. They found that the two energy sources can be perfectly optimized and that PV can compensate for the reservoir’s shortage of water storage during the winter season while hydropower can compensate for the poor yields of the floating array during the monsoon season.

The 3 kW inverter has an efficiency of 95% and features a surge power of 9000 VA. According to the manufacturer, the device is compatible with mainstream lead-acid and lithium-ion batteries.

The battery was built with a new catholyte and a symmetry-breaking strategy, which consists of changing the symmetry of the redox-active organic molecules instead of using the common approach of attaching a hydrophilic functional group.

Next Energy and Marubeni are developing a blockchain tech for PV module inspection – with the support of the Japanese government – which they claim is able to provide data on a panel’s traceability and components as well as verifying that the data were not modified or tampered with.

Developed by the Korea Institute of Energy Research (KIER), the “non-destructive” technology is claimed to enable the recovery of 100% of a module’s glass and to allow the reuse of silicon for producing new solar cells with an efficiency of 20.05%.

An Indian-Malaysian research group has investigated the effectiveness of several passive cooling techniques for solar panels, including the placement of plants around the modules or coir pith underneath them, both of which, surprisingly, offered good performance in terms of temperature reduction and power yield.

German scientists have applied a new combination of cathodes and electrolytes to improve the stability of lithium-metal batteries. They fabricated a device with an energy density of 560 watt-hours per kilogram and a Coulombic efficiency of 99.94%.