Renewables

Bentek has begun shipment of the Bentek Commercial PV PowerRack-AL for three-phase inverters. The universal PowerRack-AL provides a common design that fits ABB, Advanced Energy, Chint, Schneider, SMA, Solar Edge, SolarMax and Solectria three-phase inverters.

Together with PARANET Germany, Heliatek has been successfully installed its solar film, HeliaFilm, on a PVC-based membrane air dome in Berlin, Germany. PARANET produces air domes for sport, events or emergency accommodations supporting humanitarian aid missions. The size of the air domes varies from 18x18 meters up to 200x100 meters.

imec has announced that it has improved its large area n-type Passivated Emitter, Rear Totally diffused (PERT) crystalline Si solar cell on 6” commercially available n-type Cz-Si wafers. The solar cell now has a conversion efficiency of 22.02%, which is the highest efficiency achieved for this type of two-side-contacted solar cell on an industrial large area wafer size. 

  A development platform for UHF RFID battery-free devices which includes an ANDY100 chip with EPC C1G2 communication and a MSPG2233IPW20 MCU from Texas Instruments for communication with developers’ circuits, the Medusa has been introduced by Farsens.

Bentek has announced that it has received UL 1741 listing on its Residential Rapid Shutdown System (RSS). RSS enables string inverter compliance with the NEC 2014 690.12 rapid shutdown requirements. The Bentek Residential RSS is a complete, cost effective, easy to install, stand-alone solution.

The WindEEE Research Institute has confirmed the successful installation of a short-range 3D WindScanner, based on ZephIR Continuous Wave Lidar technology and supplied by the Wind Energy Department of the Technical University of Denmark, to study turbulence effects for wind turbines, buildings and structures.

Until 2014, there was only limited interest in thermoelectric energy harvesting and its automotive uses, explains the IDTechEx report ‘Energy Harvesting/ Regeneration for Electric Vehicles Land, Water & Air 2015-2025’. The maximum attainable efficiency, theoretically one half of that for photovoltaics, was in actuality around one tenth of theoretical at 3%. However, 2014 saw a sharp change in attitude. 

A thin film solar module which provides 97Wp in an area of 0.72m², enabling an efficiency of 14.3%, has been developed by Calyxo. At temperatures above 25°C, the CX4 module produces up to 10% more energy than comparable C-Si solar modules. Mass production of the modules will commence in 2015.

Suitable for use in PV inverters, frequency converters or power supplies for welding applications, HARTING has enhanced its range of Hall-effect current sensors with two high-current models. The models are only half the size and weight of previous versions and operate over a wider temperature range from -40 to +85°C, allowing them to be deployed in thermally critical applications.

Heliatek has successfully delivered the first Building Integrated OPV (BIOPV) solar films to China. The HeliaFilms were installed at the premises of Reckli China, a long-term strategic business partner of Heliatek. In PuDong, Shanghai, the films were integrated to concrete façade elements provided by Reckli, becoming the world's first BIOPV concrete façade installation.