Morning Brief: newer solar equipment ages gracefully, Solar FlexRack provides trackers for 14 MW of projects
Also in the brief: nearly 1 MW of solar has been installed on the roof of a 300,000-square-foot Kroger bakery facility, a big-rig driver installing solar on his truck, camouflage for solar panels and more.
Morning Brief: Enormous PV projects in Alabama, Florida, Texas, Ohio and Wisconsin
Also in the brief: Wärtsilä delivering a 70 MW energy storage project in CAISO and the DOE Solar Desalination Prize.
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
Study of 100,000 arrays finds proactive O&M preferable
The US National Renewable Energy Laboratory examined five-year data to observe the most common system failure points and how to prevent them. Researchers considered residential, commercial and utility scale plants and found interesting results. While failures cannot be avoided completely, a key takeaway was that close monitoring and timely repair can effectively mitigate the financial effects of failures.
WattBuy to automate and expand NREL’s utility rate database
“Electricity providers will have to treat renewable energy customers as cost-conscious customers once these customers can look at data across the board.”
Bifacial PV modules are going mainstream but more field data is needed — and NREL is on the case
Getting the most out of a bifacial module requires a rethink at almost every level of system design and the industry is hungry for field data generated by such systems to better inform energy yield modeling and define the best approaches to maximizing yield at minimal cost. NREL’s three-year study into bifacial performance is beginning to yield results.
MIT and NREL see solar modules reaching well below 20¢ per watt
Although, the author of this article sees a path below 15¢ per watt. Researchers at MIT, working with financial modeling teams at NREL, have projected the electrical losses and financial gains of thinning solar cells from the current 160 micrometers to 50 micrometers.
Not just for outer space: NREL has a path to cheaper GaAs solar cells
A team at the U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory has come up with a new process that would reduce the production cost of highly expensive – and highly efficient – gallium arsenide cells.
US scientists claim clear-sky irradiance model provides better results for module testing
Researchers at the American Institute of Physics have used the clear-sky irradiance model developed by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory to measure the degradation rates of solar panels at a testing field in Germany over five years. The scientists say the model, when combined with real-world data, offers an efficient tool to evaluate the aging of PV technology.
