Western Europe

The research team was able to improve the cell efficiency by 2.1%. The cell silicon layer was etched on the back-side, while a a polymer light management (LM) foil was applied to the front-side of the device.

Controllable, distributed battery storage systems can help avoid bottlenecks in power distribution networks. That reduces the cost of grid expansion, but to turn this use of storage systems into a business model, a number of conditions still have to be met.

The first companies are demonstrating that today it can be worthwhile commercially to back electric vehicles in combination with solar generation and storage. Particularly in the case of public charging stations, solar power used for electric vehicle charging could become the basis for a profitable operator model in the future.

pv magazine interviewed Ricardo Arias González, who holds a PhD in Physical Sciences and introduced the Optical Tweezers applied to biology in Spain. It is one of the tools of photonics for which Arthur Ashkin received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2018, together with Donna Strickland and Gérard Mourou.

In 2015, Germany and India signed a deal outlining plans by Germany to provide loans amounting to €1 billion for the development of Indian solar PV plans. Loans are provided through development bank, KfW. On the Indian side, REC issues low-interest loan schemes in conjunction with private sector participation to disperse the funds.

The proposed safeguard tariffs on imports from China and Malaysia are expected to generate a number of painful short-term impacts. Overall they are not expected to change much in the market, however, says TrendForce. What will have a bigger effect is the EU’s final MIP decision, due in September.

Underlining India’s commitment to becoming the global renewable energy leader, Shri Anand Kumar, secretary of the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, said the country plans 500 GW of capacity by 2030. He also underlined plans to become a solar and storage manufacturing hub; and said the International Solar Alliance needs to widen its membership.

The EV manufacturer will develop a complete system encompassing electric vehicles (EVs), smart parking, charging infrastructure and software integration platform NEMO for the experimental township of Auroville in Tamil Nadu. Mahindra has also unveiled an energy storage solution for EVs and will help harness renewable power.

The goal of the project, RE 8760 is to show how the storage of renewable energies can make them usable all year round. The generated solar power is stored and converted into hydrogen. It can also be conserved over long periods and used to recharge fuel cell vehicles during the dark winter months.

The researchers found that printed solar cells achieved a better performance when they used an active polymer material as glue.