Yotta Energy is putting batteries under solar modules — in the same spirit as microinverters and optimizers
Yotta has a potential solution for solar-plus-storage in the urban environment. Will the micro-storage startup become the next SolarEdge or Enphase? Or the next JLM energy? And whatever happened to SolPad?
The futurology of solar power: robots, hackers, 5G, cheaper modules, repowering, and really cheap electricity
Module efficiencies will continue to increase, while the price of an individual module will stay the same. Not only will this hardware produce more power, it’ll work far longer — with predictions of 30-year module warranties, roughly the projected lifetime of gas assets.
Fuel cell builder Bloom Energy continues streak of business math errors and lack of profits
A likely profitless 2019 will bring Bloom’s streak to 76 profitless quarters. Its most recent business math error has the firm restating years of earnings.
Software can drastically improve the economics of commercial solar
Jigar Shah of Generate: “Load flexibility is the giant issue nobody is talking about…Extensible Energy’s load-flexibility software is a win-win for the solar contractor and the building owner. Building owners get a higher ROI and faster payback time, and the solar contractor can offer an easy-install demand charge solution with or without batteries.”
The inner workings of a lithium battery
An international group of scientists has developed a method to track the microscopic processes at work in lithium batteries. Employing a ‘virtual unrolling’ model developed for ancient manuscripts too sensitive to be opened, the group peeked inside the layers of a commercial battery to gain a better understanding of the processes at work and the degradation mechanisms affecting them.
Reactive power produced on-site increasingly important as solar power and EVs go mainstream
Cutting costs and integrating clean energy with local reactive power generation.
Silicon heterojunction solar cell hits 23.5% efficiency with new hole-selective contact
Researchers from Switzerland’s École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne have used molybdenum oxide as the hole-selective contact in a heterojuction silicon cell. The scientists claim the compound can compete with traditional contacts despite a lower level of optimization.
Trump budget request boosts nuclear, clean coal – while solar, ARPA-E and energy R&D are cut
Presidential budget requests rarely make it through congress. Nevertheless, this budget reveals the administration’s radical goals. Bad news for ARPA-E , EPA and Energy-Star.
Recycling heat for a ‘385% efficient’ solar desalinator
MIT scientists have developed a solar desalinator which sends heat from the sun through a ten-stage process of evaporation and condensation. The group estimates that a $100 device incorporating their innovation could provide the daily drinking water needs of a family.
Ten sunniest US states added 1.8 GW of small-scale solar in 2019, as solar advocates press for more
Solar contractors added another 1.8 gigawatts of small-scale solar in the ten sunniest states last year. In Hawaii and California, solar groups described their ambitious policy goals to keep the momentum going.
