Morning Brief: What does the pandemic mean for the energy transition?
Also in the brief: Michigan solar installers say their future depends on lifting the energy cap. Plus, chickens.
Battery startup FreeWire raises $25 million in funding
The funding was led by an existing investor of FreeWire, BP, and will allow the company to commercialize its upcoming Boost EV Charger, as well as expand operations across the United States and into Europe.
Canadian Solar calls Solaria’s ‘shingled’ cell patent claim ‘meritless and unfounded’
The patent infringement claim concerns a process for separating photovoltaic strips from silicon solar cells for use in more-efficient tiled or “shingled” solar panels.
The life of brine
Solar remains an interesting option to power water desalination despite obstacles to its widespread adoption. A recent study has highlighted the processing or dumping of brine waste as an important factor to consider.
Six-junction III–V solar cell with 47.1% efficiency
A U.S. research group has developed a new solar cell, based on six active photoactive layers, to capture light from a specific part of the solar spectrum. The scientists claim that they could potentially reach a 50% efficiency rate with the new cell.
Morning Brief: Rick Perry bucked Congress’s clean energy mandate
Also in the brief: How a conservative coal county built the biggest community solar energy project in East Kentucky. Why 30M solar rooftops should be in the next relief bill
ClearVue’s luminescent solar concentrators create clear PV windows
The lure of building integrated photovoltaics continues to attract entrepreneurs and startups.
Green hydrogen and the switch to a secure, ‘climate-friendly’ gas-based energy supply
German industrial giants Uniper and Siemens are working together to advance the use of green hydrogen and replace conventional, gas-fired hydrogen production plants.
Ubiquitous Energy’s clear solar windows harvest UV and IR light — an update
Can an organic solar cell material finally be commercialized? Last year, Ubiquitous Energy claimed a world record for efficiency of a transparent solar cell with a 9.8% efficiency. Can a solar window harvest enough power to be practical?
GE’s ‘grid-forming’ inverter aims to make solar, wind look like traditional generators
GE Research plans to test new controls with its PV LV5 inverter platform — aiming to develop “grid-forming” controls to allow wind and solar inverters to form voltage and frequency levels like traditional generators. The company wants to improve coordination and synchronization among multiple grid-forming resources, and is working to improve the transient stability of systems with high renewables penetration.
