The EPFL launched a new project, supported by the Valais State Government with 5 million Swiss Francs, to realize a "demonstrator project" at EPFL-Sion Campus Energypolis.
Sized at the canton or district level, these installations will enable the testing of technologies developed in the laboratories of EPFL Valais-Wallis in real conditions, with the collaboration of local partners and the HES-SO Valais-Wallis.
The Department of Science and Technology (DST), under India’s Ministry of Science & Technology, has announced the list of solar and storage projects to be carried out by Indian and Israeli researchers with joint funding by the two nations. The project duration will be two years.
Solar projects selected for joint funding include novel electron and hole transport materials for perovskite solar cells by CSIR Indian Institute of Chemical Technology Hyderabad and The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and mixed-dimensional and hybrid bilayered perovskites for high-stability and high-efficiency photovoltaic devices by CSIR National Institute for Interdisciplinary Science and Technology, Kerala, and Technion Israel Institute of Technology.
The U.S government's Solar Energy Technologies Office (SETO) Fiscal Year 2020 funding program has been released, supporting projects that will improve the affordability, reliability, and value of solar technologies on the U.S. grid and tackle emerging challenges in the solar industry.
This program funds projects that advance early-stage photovoltaic (PV), concentrating solar-thermal power (CSP), and systems integration technologies, and reduce the non-hardware costs associated with installing solar energy systems. Two perovskite-related projects have been included in this program.
Sweden-based perovskite-based PV start-up Evolar has announced an investment from Norwegian renewables investor Magnora as it targets rapid commercialization of its technology.
Evolar has been researching the development of perovskites in solar cells, and Evolar now intends to help commercialize the technology. Evolar’s approach is to add a perovskite-based thin-film layer to cells to create a tandem solar cell, which the company said is expected to increase module efficiency by five percentage points.
Oxford PV, currently involved in building a manufacturing facility in Brandenburg an der Havel for its silicon perovskite tandem solar cells (in which it is investing around €44 million), has received €8.8 million funding from the state Ministry of Economics in Potsdam for this project.
“I am delighted that Oxford Photovoltaics has brought the solar technology developed by the company itself to market maturity and that it will soon start with industrial series production here in Brandenburg,” said Brandenburg Minister for Economic Affairs Jörg Steinbach. “The decision by Oxford PV to expand the production facility in Hohenstücke is a clear commitment to our community.”