Verde Technologies has opened a new research lab and pilot production facility in Waterbury Center, Vermont, which will aim to allow the company to build out its pilot lines and start producing larger thin-film solar cells for upcoming pilot projects with local and national partners. 

The research center is located in the former Suss Microtec facility. Verde's lead investor is VCET's Vermont Seed Capital Fund. Founded in Burlington by University of Vermont alums and researchers, Verde Technologies manufactures thin, lightweight and flexible perovskite solar panels. The Company says that "these American-made and manufactured panels are ten times lighter than traditional silicon solar panels and use a peel-and-stick installation method making them much more accessible and affordable". Verde’s technology will allow them to repower older solar fields to increase their output and utilize existing infrastructure.

Researchers from the  Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and Zhejiang University have developed a highly passivated TOPCon bottom cell, achieving perovskite/silicon tandem solar cells (TSCs) with high open-circuit voltages (VOCs) and excellent efficiencies. 

The structure and performance of tandem devices with highly passivated TOPCon bottom cells. Image by Ningbo Institute of Materials Technology and Engineering (NIMTE) 

Numerous defects at the fragile silicon oxide/c-Si interface and the weak field-effect passivation on textured substrates reduce the VOCs of current TOPCon silicon solar cells, thus limiting their application for high-performance perovskite/silicon TSCs. In this study, the researchers prepared highly passivated p-type TOPCon structures and double-sided TOPCon bottom cells on industrial textured wafers via industry-compatible fabrication methods, including ambient-pressure thermal oxidation and in situ plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition.

Australia’s national science agency, CSIRO, has opened a facility dedicated to taking its printed flexible solar technology out of the lab and into the real world, to help meet the growing demand for renewable energy across sectors. The facility received AUD$6.8 million (around USD$4,473,000) funding from Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) via the Australian Centre for Advanced Photovoltaics (ACAP). 

CSIRO’s innovative solar cells are made using perovskites, printed on long continuous rolls of flexible film. This makes them lightweight, portable, and suitable for various applications across urban construction, space, defense, mining, emergency management, disaster relief, and wearables.

Researchers from South Korea's Jeonbuk National University examined the use of slot die coating (SDC) to make uniform high-quality perovskite films as a step towards large-area perovskite device manufacturing.

Schematic illustration of the perovskite lab cell-sized module. Image credit: Communications Materials

The team found that SDC increased the roughness of the hole transport layer (HTL) interface, which improved the wettability of the surface, enabling a high-quality perovskite film without bubbles or pinholes. A perovskite solar cell based on the film achieved 19.17% efficiency with “excellent” stability results, and a lab cell-sized module achieved 17.42% efficiency.