Research & Development

The preliminary proposals must reach the ministry by June 30. These will be examined by a committee and the shortlisted parties will be invited to submit final proposal.

By 2030, according to the United Nations nearly half of the world’s population will be living in water-stressed areas if no preventive actions are taken. Water reuse technologies and measures to reduce water usage can only serve as temporary relief for the upcoming water crisis. Jiajun Cen, CTO at Desolenator, lays out the case for solar powered desalination as a solution.

And the analyst expects that annual new additions figure to rise to 10.6 GW in 2025. This year the U.S. will surpass South Korea as the largest storage market due to new capacity for solar-plus-storage projects. In Japan and Australia, growth will be spurred by the termination of FIT programs.

As the nation aims for 100 GW of solar capacity by 2022 it is staring at up to 1.8 million tons of PV waste by 2050. A solar waste management seminar organized by consultancy Bridge To India in New Delhi brought stakeholders together to discuss how a PV waste management system could help.

Often touted as the missing link in the energy transition, power-to-gas (P2G) has not yet had its time to shine. While the technology has been around for decades, large-scale projects have been exceptionally rare. Over the last year, however, encouraging signals are emerging as research, pilot projects, and small-scale applications appear to have picked up pace. As debate continues about the tipping point for P2G in terms of conversion efficiency and costs, some market players are optimistic about near-term prospects.

The Department of Science & Technology (DST), Government of India, and Swedish Governmental Agency for Innovation Systems (Vinnova) have created funding mechanisms through which companies may seek support for joint R&D projects. The projects should aim to develop renewable, energy storage and waste management technologies that can be commercialized over two years through joint cooperation between India and Sweden.

A 10,000-liters-per-day plant in Tamil Nadu offers hope for powering clean water without fossil fuels. However, researchers warn the technology is difficult to scale up because PV panels take up so much space.

Amtronics CC has paid U.S. firm Quantum Materials Corp an initial $500,000 as part of an agreement securing the right to manufacture quantum dots and thin-film quantum dot solar cells based on QMC technology for commercial supply in India. Construction has already started on a manufacturing facility in Assam, which will produce solar cells via a continuous, rapid-feed, flexographic-based printing process.

Chinese PV manufacturer Hanergy Thin Film Power Group today announced it has achieved 24.23% cell efficiency using its silicon heterojunction technology. The efficiency has been confirmed by Japan’s Electrical Safety & Environment Technology Laboratories.

Government-owned Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited and Australian business Libcoin are in talks to form a joint venture to build a 1 GWh production capacity lithium-ion battery plant in India that would eventually be scaled up to 30 GWh.