The result was confirmed by Germany’s Institute for Solar Energy Research Hamelin (ISFH). As the world’s leading solar technology company, Longi has achieved continual breakthroughs in PV conversion efficiencies.
Another key invention comes from an international research group that studied how down-conversion (DC) materials can improve the performance of PV cells based on perovskite. The team found that such materials could result in an electric yield enlargement by converting ultraviolet (UV) light to visible while also providing UV shielding.
Floating solar
Floating solar, also known as floatovoltaics or floating solar panels, are a lesser-known solar technology. These are, quite literally, solar panels that float on bodies of water. Reservoirs, lakes, and irrigation canals are common choices. They can generate large-scale power and while they aren’t currently in widespread use, they’re seeing increased commercial applications.
Some of the key benefits of floatovoltaics include:
- No land occupancy: The main advantage of floating solar is that, unlike land-mounted solar PV, these panels don’t take up valuable real estate. Their price is comparable with land-based plants, but floatovoltaics provide a good way to avoid land consumption.
- Installation and decommissioning: Floating PV plants are more compact than land-based plants, their management is simpler and their construction and decommissioning straightforward. The installation of floatovoltaics requires no fixed structures like for land-based panels. This means their installation can be totally reversible.
- Water conservation and water quality: Partial coverage of water basins can reduce water evaporation, though this does depend on climate conditions and the percentage of covered surface. In arid climates like parts of India, this is an important advantage with about 30% of the evaporation being avoided. In Australia, this figure could be even greater and is a very useful feature if the basin is used for irrigation purposes.
- Cooling: Another distinct advantage of floating solar is that they can achieve higher efficiencies than land alternatives because water cools the panels. Efficiency rises thanks to the absence of thermal drift, with a gain in energy harvesting reaching 8%-10%.
- Tracking: Large floating platforms can easily be rotated horizontally and vertically to enable sun-tracking. Moving solar arrays uses little energy and doesn’t need a complex mechanical apparatus like land-based PV plants. Equipping a floating PV plant with a tracking system costs little extra while the energy gain can range from 15% to 25%.
- Environment control: Algal blooms, a serious problem in industrialized countries, may be reduced by floating solar. The partial coverage of the basins and the reduction of light on biological fouling just below the surface help solve this problem.
Agrivoltaics
Agrivoltaics is another innovative land-saving solar energy concept. It involves using land for both solar panels and agriculture, with both sharing the same light. While it has great potential in promoting a circular economy and increasing production efficiency for agriculture, there are concerns that optimal crop yields would be more difficult to attain.
Agricultural land is generally incredibly well suited to solar. As opposed to barren land, more power can be generated on agricultural plots. This is primarily because photovoltaic systems tend to decrease in efficiency at higher temperatures, and farmland is usually found in moister areas.
With more and more land being used for solar, in the near future, it’s likely that competition for farmland will increase – agrivoltaics can help avoid this. Assuming a median power potential of 28 W/m2 as claimed by SolarCity, a Californian company now acquired by Tesla, one report estimates that covering less than 1% of the world’s cropland with conventional solar arrays could generate all the world’s current electricity demands. In the future, its likely that agrivoltaics will be increasingly adopted.
Solar energy markets
Solar energy is a broad industry with a high level of diversity, creativity and flexibility. The industry has a strong degree of tolerance for experimentation and risk-taking, which is resulting in the continued growth and acceptance of the industry’s legitimacy.
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