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The PV Performance Modeling and Monitoring Workshop, which is being held in China for the first time, will take place from December 5-6, 2017. International photovoltaic experts from research and industry are set to come together in Weihai to discuss the latest research results and market requirements for modeling and monitoring PV systems.

The growth of solar energy has been grossly underestimated in the results of the models of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Costs have dropped and infrastructures expanded much faster than even the most optimistic models had assumed.

The Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE is collaborating with the Energy Research Centre of the Netherlands (ECN) to organize the 8th Back Contact Workshop, which will be held in Freiburg from November 21–22, 2017. The workshop focuses on back contact technology for solar cells and modules. This technology involves fitting the contacts entirely on the rear side of the solar cells in order to improve sunlight absorption on the front side.

The part-time and online study program provides a great opportunity to gain insights into the science and technology of solar energy. The program, which replaced the successful "Master Online Photovoltaics" last year is now running in its second year and offers a wide variety of subjects from solar cell technologies, photovoltaic systems and grids to solar thermal systems.

"Terawatt-scale photovoltaics: Trajectories and challenges" by the Global Alliance of Solar Energy Research Institutes now published in Science

Several new record cell efficiencies were announced at SiliconPV, the 7th International Conference on Silicon Photovoltaics which was held in Freiburg, Germany on April 3-5, 2017. This top-level scientific forum demonstrated that silicon, the workhorse of the solar cell industry, still has large development potential.

To secure water availability on an economic and ecological level, the importance of reusing community and industrial wastewater and process fluids is becoming more and more evident. The cooperative project “Treatment of Concentrates from Wastewater Recycling Processes,” or HighCon for short, aims to develop innovative, multi-step selective processes that allow the generated concentrates to be almost fully reused.

Silicon solar cells dominate the global photovoltaic market today with a share of 90 percent. With ever new technological developments, research and industry are nearing the theoretical efficiency limit for semiconductor silicon. At the same time, they are forging new paths to develop a new generation of even more efficient solar cells.

Until a few years ago, solar air heating collector systems have received only limited attention on the market compared to fluid heating collector systems. Solar air heating collectors are more difficult to measure and to evaluate. This not only hinders the development of new products but also provides less transparency on existing products. In the meanwhile, a more detailed measurement method has been incorporated into the test procedure for solar thermal collectors (DIN EN ISO 9806). On this basis, Fraunhofer ISE created an MS Excel application in order to improve air collector evaluation and system planning. The calculated results serve to certify solar air collectors according to Solar KEYMARK, to design system layouts, to develop air collectors as well as to perform parameter variation studies.

The expansion of renewable energy sources impacts the entire energy system in a variety of ways. Both the functions of the individual components, i.e. supplier, consumer and storage, as well as their interaction with each other must be redefined. Buildings themselves will also have to take on new roles. They must be able to react flexibly to the conditions in the energy system, orienting their operation more on the energy production than demand.