Websol Energy System Limited has secured land from the West Bengal government, which has allotted approximately 54.20 acres to the company at Falta Industrial Park.

Newswise — One drawback of most solar cells made with efficiency-boosting perovskite is the presence of hazardous lead in the materials that turn sunlight into electricity. Next-generation solar cells made with the most promising, lead-free replacement — non-toxic tin perovskite — have had their own major weakness: they don’t hold up against the elements. Now, researchers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, the National Laboratory of the Rockies and other collaborating institutions have designed a new tin-based perovskite with built-in protection against air and moisture. It’s a coating that gives the solar cells protection like a raincoat. The advance, published recently in the journal Nature Materials, addresses one of the biggest challenges facing tin-based perovskite solar cells by making them more durable for practical use while also enhancing performance. The researchers’ solar cells reached 16.2% efficiency — among the state-of-the-art for tin perovskite cells — and remained remarkably stable during extended testing. “Tin perovskites are very promising materials for solar energy, but they are extremely sensitive to air and moisture,” says Song Jin, a UW–Madison professor of Chemistry and a corresponding author of the study. “We wanted to find a way to protect these materials while preserving the properties that make...

Under the ocean, things aren't quite so bright. Much of the Sun's rays bounce right off the ocean's surface, and the ones that do penetrate the water are absorbed and scattered over much shorter distances than they are in air. That's why, the deeper you get, the darker it is. As such, 32 feet (10 meters) underwater is a pretty unexpected place to put solar panels, of all things. And yet, a team of scientists from Yunnan University in China has done just that. Their submarine solar cells, mounted 10 meters (32 feet) below the surface of the South China Sea, were able to collect enough energy to charge lithium-ion batteries in just two hours. "Very few studies have been reported on underwater solar cells, and all of them are focused on very shallow water depths of only two meters or less, a scenario far from catering for requirements of practical application," says Wen-Hua Zhang, of Yunnan University. "This work presents the first functional validation of submerged solar cells practically operating at a water depth of up to about 10 meters, greatly broadening their application scope." They estimate the solar cells could operate for around five and a half years...

Researchers at Yunnan University and Southwest United Graduate School have demonstrated functional underwater solar cells operating at a depth of 10 meters (33 feet) in the South China Sea. The achievement smashes previous limits. Earlier attempts to harvest solar energy underwater stalled out in shallow waters under two meters deep, where sunlight is still plentiful but practical applications are scarce. Combined with an estimated continuous operational lifespan of roughly 5.5 years, this technology could ultimately offer a reliable, long-term power source for remote oceanic systems. The study shows that submerged photovoltaics can provide a viable power source for underwater sensors, cameras, and communication systems in the future. “Very few studies have been reported on underwater solar cells, and all of them are focused on very shallow water depths of only two meters or less, a scenario far from catering for requirements of practical application,” said Wen-Hua Zhang, the study author. “This work presents the first functional validation of submerged solar cells practically operating at a water depth of up to about 10 meters, greatly broadening their application scope,” Zhang added. Bandgap optimization Standard commercial silicon solar cells are designed to capture broad terrestrial sunlight, particularly red/infrared rays. Underwater, silicon cells...

Solarworld Energy has entered into a JV with Rays Power to establish, develop, construct, commission, and operate a 2.4 GW solar cell manufacturing facility.

UNSW Sydney engineers have harnessed the fundamental skills of bakers to ensure next-generation environmentally friendly solar-cell materials form with fewer tiny defects. The discovery allows the cells to convert sunlight into electricity more efficiently than before and could provide a blueprint for improving a wide range of advanced semiconductor materials. The researchers said the trick is to imagine baking a cake. Although every ingredient is carefully measured and mixed together, sometimes as the cake bakes the butter can pool in one corner, the cinnamon is stronger in one section, and the fruit sinks to the bottom. So even though the ingredients were all correct and the recipe was followed, the final cake is far from perfect. Something remarkably similar happens when manufacturing solar cell materials, the researchers said. “The cake analogy is really apt because that’s exactly what we are doing,” said Scientia Professor Xiaojing Hao from UNSW’s School of Photovoltaic and Renewable Energy Engineering. “With a cake you mix all the different ingredients and put it into the oven. We do a similar thing with solar cell material, except it goes into a furnace,” Hao said. In the research, published in Nature Energy, the researchers have shown that it...

Newswise — Silicon modules still dominate the photovoltaics (PV) market, yet their power conversion efficiency (PCE) is approaching a practical limit. Tandem cells address this ceiling by stacking absorbers with different bandgaps so that each layer captures a different part of sunlight. In Two-terminal (2T) perovskite/silicon tandems, however, the sub-cells are connected in series, so the whole device is limited by the weaker current. Outdoor spectra shift with cloud cover, air mass (AM), atmospheric absorption, water vapor, season, and geography, making laboratory standard test conditions (STC) an incomplete guide for bankable energy forecasts. Based on these challenges, there is a need to conduct in-depth research into spectrum-driven performance losses in 2T tandem solar cells. The study was conducted by researchers from Southwest Petroleum University, Tongwei Solar (Chengdu) Ltd., the Shanghai Institute of Microsystem and Information Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and collaborating institutions in China. Published (DOI: 10.1016/j.esen.2026.100065) online on May 9, 2026, in eScience Energy, the research evaluated 2T perovskite/silicon tandem solar cells under globally varying spectral conditions and developed a practical framework to assess outdoor spectral mismatch, annual energy yield, and the levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) across representative PV deployment climates and operating environments worldwide. The team...

Market-leading solar cells use crystalline silicon to convert sunlight into electricity, but have essentially reached the limit of the percentage of incoming light that they can harness. Solar cells that use materials called perovskites in tandem with silicon can exceed the conversion efficiency of silicon-only devices and are rapidly approaching commercialization. Yet it remains uncertain which manufacturing process will enable economically viable production of such solar cells on an industrial scale1. Writing in Nature, Luo et al.2 report a key advance that suppresses the degradation of a compound that is used to make thin films of perovskites through a method called thermal evaporation. This enables the fabrication of high-performance perovskite–silicon tandem solar cells at much lower temperatures than have been needed previously, and at the sizes required for commercial production. doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-026-02469-6 Reprints and permissions Competing Interests The authors declare no competing interests. Subjects Materials science Energy Chemistry...

The improved CZTS solar cell developed at UNSW is made of fully environmentally-friendly materials. Image from UNSW/Ao Wang UNSW Sydney UNSW Sydney researchers have uncovered a new way to improve a promising next-generation solar cell material by making sure its ingredients stay evenly mixed while it’s being made. UNSW engineers have harnessed the fundamental skills of bakers to ensure next-generation environmentally friendly solar-cell materials form with fewer tiny defects. The discovery allows the cells to convert sunlight into electricity more efficiently than before and could provide a blueprint for improving a wide range of advanced semiconductor materials. The trick is to imagine baking a cake. Although every ingredient is carefully measured and mixed together, sometimes as the cake bakes the butter can pool in one corner, the cinnamon is stronger in one section, and the fruit sinks to the bottom. So even though the ingredients were all correct and the recipe was followed, the final cake is far from perfect. According to researchers from UNSW, something remarkably similar happens when manufacturing one of the world’s most promising solar cell materials. “The cake analogy is really apt because that’s exactly what we are doing,” says Scientia Professor Xiaojing Hao from UNSW’s...

Australian researchers have uncovered a new way to improve a promising next-gen solar cell material. Read more.

Perovskite/perovskite/silicon-based triple-junction solar cells are a promising low-cost route to surpass the Shockley–Queisser efficiency limit of single-junction photovoltaics, but their performance is constrained by non-radiative losses in wide-bandgap perovskites and sub-optimal light management across the multilayer stack1-3. Here, we introduce a passivating molecule, 4F-POEABr, which strongly suppresses surface-defect-mediated recombination of WBG perovskite films. The ammonium attached and electron-deficient structure of 4F-POEABr provides combined chemical and field-effect passivation, enabling a quasi-Fermi-level splitting of 1.53 eV and an open-circuit voltage of 1.413 V in the WBG sub-cell. In parallel, systematic interference management is used to optimize the current density of the current-limited middle sub-cell, yielding a gain of 0.5 mA cm⁻2 via a tailored tin oxide/indium zinc oxide bilayer structure. As a result, the triple-junction devices achieve certified steady-state power conversion efficiencies of 32.22% for a 1.046 cm2 aperture area and 26.97% for a 15.62 cm2 aperture area, with negligible hysteresis. Robust interconnection layers and engineered perovskite interfaces further enhance operational stability and reduce device-to-device variation. This work demonstrates a synergistic strategy for pushing perovskite/silicon triple-junction solar cells toward their theoretical efficiency limits, enabling scalable, high-performance photovoltaic technologies...

Researchers in Lithuania have increased tandem perovskite solar cell efficiency to more than 29 percent after modifying an ultra-thin molecular layer that transfers positive charge carriers within the device. Kaunas University of Technology (KTU) scientists and their international partners created a more stable interface between different layers of the solar cells. This reduced the corrosion and made it possible for the cells to maintain higher efficiency and performance. Kasparas Rakštys, PhD, a researcher at KTU, pointed out that these layers must be perfectly interconnected for the device to operate efficiently. “Simply put, a solar cell can be imagined as a multi-layered sandwich in which each layer is made of a different material and performs a specific function,” he added. The solution involved altering the molecular group responsible for bonding with the metal oxide layer. Instead of its conventional acidic form, they turned it into an ionic salt. With this new method, perovskite tandem solar cells achieved a power conversion efficiency of more than 29 percent. Protecting the interface Perovskite solar cells are thin-film photovoltaic (PV) devices that use a perovskite material as the active layer. They’re considered a promising energy technology as they’re lightweight, flexible, and relatively cheap to manufacture...

Newswise — Silicon modules still dominate the photovoltaics (PV) market, yet their power conversion efficiency (PCE) is approaching a practical limit. Tandem cells address this ceiling by stacking absorbers with different bandgaps so that each layer captures a different part of sunlight. In Two-terminal (2T) perovskite/silicon tandems, however, the sub-cells are connected in series, so the whole device is limited by the weaker current. Outdoor spectra shift with cloud cover, air mass (AM), atmospheric absorption, water vapor, season, and geography, making laboratory standard test conditions (STC) an incomplete guide for bankable energy forecasts. Based on these challenges, there is a need to conduct in-depth research into spectrum-driven performance losses in 2T tandem solar cells. The study was conducted by researchers from Southwest Petroleum University, Tongwei Solar (Chengdu) Ltd., the Shanghai Institute of Microsystem and Information Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and collaborating institutions in China. Published (DOI: 10.1016/j.esen.2026.100065) online on May 9, 2026, in eScience Energy, the research evaluated 2T perovskite/silicon tandem solar cells under globally varying spectral conditions and developed a practical framework to assess outdoor spectral mismatch, annual energy yield, and the levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) across representative PV deployment climates and operating environments worldwide. The team...