Technology and R&D

The new edition of the International Technology Roadmap for Photovoltaic (ITRPV), published this week, finds that 295 GW of PV modules was shipped in 2022, and that prices for silicon PV modules fell by 7% over the year. The report finds that price premiums for n-type modules are now marginal, and the technology grew to represent 15% of the market, and is expected to keep growing over the coming decade.

Perovskite-silicon tandem technology expert Gianluca Coletti explains what cycles the PV industry and scientific community experience every time there are new jumps in power conversion efficiencies at cell level. According to him, we are experiencing a much faster turnover of efficiency records typical of the early stage of development of a new technology holding an incredible potential.

NREL researchers model viable pathways to supplying the estimated 60 TW of capacity required for decarbonization, and study the effect that disruptive solar technologies may have on deployment cost and market opportunity.

Researchers from Switzerland’s École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne have unveiled a new solar dish plant design, while Plug Power has delivered its first electrolyzer system to Europe.

Researchers have defined a new machine learning-based methodology that reportedly reduces customer acquisition costs by about 15% or $0.07/Watt. It is based on an adapted version of the XGBoost algorithm and considers factors such as summer bills, household income, and homeowner’s age, among others.

Kaneka said the cells will be utilized in the roof glass of Toyota’s Prius PHEV electric car. It plans to begin full-scale delivery of in-vehicle PV products this year.

IIT Kanpur and Lohum will work together to advance lithium-ion battery testing technology and techniques for evaluating battery raw material quality. Lohum will additionally sponsor R&D labs at IIT Kanpur, provide a research fellowship to Ph.D. students, and help IITK commercialize its research outcomes.

Indian scientists have built a four-terminal silicon-perovskite solar cell that uses a top perovskite device with an efficiency of up to 17.1%. The top cell incorporates a room-temperature sputtered transparent conducting electrode (TCE) as a rear electrode.

Gayatri Dadheech, chief technology officer at Exide Industries Ltd, told pv magazine their first-phase 6 GWh lithium-ion cell manufacturing capacity in India would become operational by December next year and will produce lithium ferro phosphate (LFP) and nickel-manganese-cobalt (NMC) cells. The following 6 GWh, targeted by 2027, could be based on advanced lithium-ion, solid-state, or other battery technology.

Thin-film technologies have long promised to make a major impact on the solar industry but have largely been constrained to niche applications and research labs if they were not shredded by the market. After several false starts, current trade dynamics and promising research programs may help solar thin films find their place in the sun.