Solar Energy

Clean energy largest driver of Chinese GDP growth in 2023: report

Published

1 year ago

January 25, 2024

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Clean energy largest driver of Chinese GDP growth in 2023: report

By Jing Xuan TENG

Shanghai (AFP) Jan 25, 2024

Clean-energy projects were the largest driver of China’s economic growth in 2023, with Beijing investing nearly as much in decarbonisation infrastructure as total global investment in fossil fuels, according to a report released Thursday.

China is the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases driving climate change, but it is also the top producer of wind and solar energy.

Faced with soaring energy consumption, the country has turbocharged its use of renewables — but also in 2022 approved its largest expansion of coal-fired power plants since 2015, despite President Xi Jinping pledging to peak CO2 emissions between 2026 and 2030.

Investment in “clean-energy” sectors accounted for 40 percent of China’s GDP expansion last year, researchers at the Finland-based Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) said in a new report on Thursday.

“With Chinese investment growing by just 1.5 trillion yuan in 2023 overall, the analysis shows that clean energy accounted for all of the growth, while investment in sectors such as real estate shrank,” the researchers said.

The researchers examined investment in solar power, electric vehicles (EVs), energy efficiency, railways, energy storage, electricity grids, wind, nuclear and hydropower.

These sectors received $890 billion in investment, almost as much as the total global investment in fossil fuels last year, CREA researchers said.

“Without the growth from clean-energy sectors, China’s GDP would have missed the government’s growth target of ‘around 5 percent’, rising by only 3.0 percent instead of 5.2 percent,” the researchers found.

“China’s reliance on the clean technology sectors to drive growth and achieve key economic targets boosts their economic and political importance,” the researchers said. “It could also support an accelerated energy transition.”

– EV glut –

They warned, however, that China could soon have excess capacity in the sector, and that “there is a limit to how much solar power, batteries and other clean technology can be absorbed”.

“In order to keep driving growth in investment, clean technology manufacturing would need to not only absorb as much capital as it did in 2023, but keep increasing investment year after year,” the researchers said.

The threat of overcapacity is beginning to trouble Chinese policymakers, with Vice Minister of Industry Xin Guobin saying that some businesses had been “blindly rushing in, and building redundant new energy vehicle projects”.

Xin said at a press conference last week that the government would take measures to crack down on unnecessary EV projects.

Buoyed by years of government subsidies, China’s electric car industry has exploded in the past decade, with homegrown BYD overtaking US carmaker Tesla in electric vehicle sales last quarter.

Between 2014 and the end of 2022, the Chinese government said it had spent more than 200 billion yuan ($28 billion) on subsidies and tax breaks for EV purchases alone.

Companies in other industries are looking to grab a share of the pie, including consumer electronics giant Xiaomi, which unveiled its first electric car model last month.

Chinese EV firms now face problems, however, including “insufficient consumer demand” and trade barriers in other markets, with many businesses still struggling to make a profit, Xin warned at a press conference on Friday.

International Energy Agency chief Fatih Birol warned last week that trade barriers in the clean energy sector could slow down the global energy transition.

Both the United States and European countries have signalled they might adopt more protectionist policies to buttress their own green sectors.

Washington is considering raising tariffs on Chinese EVs, as well as other goods like solar cells, media reports said in December.

EVs are already subjected to a 25 percent import fee introduced on Chinese automobiles during Donald Trump’s administration.

In October, the EU announced a probe into China’s EV subsidies after accusations that the resulting products undercut European competitors.

The bloc is also mulling a separate investigation into Chinese support for its manufacturers of wind turbines.

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Solar Energy

Scientists Probe Declining Earbud Battery Longevity

Published

4 hours ago

February 5, 2025

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Scientists Probe Declining Earbud Battery Longevity

by Clarence Oxford

Los Angeles CA (SPX) Feb 05, 2025

Have you ever noticed how electronic devices, including wireless earbuds, seem to lose battery capacity faster the longer you use them? An international research team from The University of Texas at Austin set out to examine this familiar issue, known as battery degradation, by focusing on the earbuds that many people rely on daily. Through a series of x-ray, infrared, and other imaging approaches, the researchers investigated the hidden complexities behind these tiny devices and revealed why their battery life declines over time.

“This started with my personal headphones; I only wear the right one, and I found that after two years, the left earbud had a much longer battery life,” said Yijin Liu, an associate professor in the Cockrell School of Engineering’s Walker Department of Mechanical Engineering, who led the new research published in Advanced Materials. “So, we decided to look into it and see what we could find.”

Their analysis showed that crucial earbud features – like the Bluetooth antenna, microphones, and circuits – compete with the battery in a very confined space, producing a microenvironment that is less than ideal. This situation results in a temperature gradient that damages the battery over time, with different sections of the cell experiencing variable temperatures.

Real-world factors also complicate matters. Frequent changes in climate, shifts in air quality, and a host of other environmental variables challenge the battery’s resilience. While cells are generally designed to endure harsh conditions, constant fluctuations can take their toll.

These discoveries highlight the importance of considering how batteries interact with devices such as phones, laptops, and even electric vehicles. Packaging solutions, strategic design decisions, and adaptations for user habits may all play a role in extending battery performance.

“Using devices differently changes how the battery behaves and performs,” said Guannan Qian, the first author of this paper and a postdoctoral researcher in Liu’s lab. “They could be exposed to different temperatures; one person has different charging habits than another; and every electric vehicle owner has their own driving style. This all matters.”

In conducting this study, Liu and his team worked closely with UT’s Fire Research Group, led by mechanical engineer Ofodike Ezekoye. They paired infrared imaging methods with their in-house x-ray technology at UT Austin and Sigray Inc. To expand their scope, they then teamed up with some of the world’s most advanced x-ray facilities.

Their collaborators included researchers from SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory’s Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource, Brookhaven National Laboratory’s National Synchrotron Light Source II, Argonne National Laboratory’s Advanced Photon Source, and the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) in France. These partnerships allowed them to observe battery behavior under more authentic operating conditions.

“Most of the time, in the lab, we’re looking at either pristine and stable conditions or extremes,” said Xiaojing Huang, a physicist at Brookhaven National Laboratory. “As we discover and develop new types of batteries, we must understand the differences between lab conditions and the unpredictability of the real world and react accordingly. X-ray imaging can offer valuable insights for this.”

Looking ahead, Liu says his team will continue analyzing battery performance in the settings people experience every day. They plan to expand their approach to larger batteries, such as those in smartphones, laptops, and electric vehicles, to learn more about their degradation patterns.

Research Report:In-device Battery Failure Analysis

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Solar Energy

Quantum factors elevate plant energy transport efficiency

Published

4 hours ago

February 5, 2025

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Quantum factors elevate plant energy transport efficiency

by Robert Schreiber

Munich, Germany (SPX) Feb 05, 2025

For countless engineers, converting sunlight into easily stored chemical energy stands as an enduring goal. Yet nature perfected this challenge billions of years ago. A recent study reveals that quantum mechanics, once thought to be limited to physics, is also essential for key biological processes.

Green plants and other photosynthetic organisms draw on quantum mechanical mechanisms to capture the sun’s energy. According to Prof. Jurgen Hauer: “When light is absorbed in a leaf, for example, the electronic excitation energy is distributed over several states of each excited chlorophyll molecule; this is called a superposition of excited states. It is the first stage of an almost loss-free energy transfer within and between the molecules and makes the efficient onward transport of solar energy possible. Quantum mechanics is therefore central to understanding the first steps of energy transfer and charge separation.”

Classical physics alone cannot completely describe how this phenomenon unfolds throughout green plants and in certain photosynthetic bacteria. Although the exact details remain only partly understood, Prof. Hauer and first author Erika Keil consider their new findings an important step toward uncovering how chlorophyll, the pigment behind leaf coloration, functions. Applying these insights to engineered photosynthesis devices could unlock unprecedented solar energy conversion efficiencies for both power production and photochemical applications.

In their investigation, the researchers focused on two portions of the light spectrum absorbed by chlorophyll: the low-energy Q band (yellow to red) and the high-energy B band (blue to green). In the Q region, two electronic states are quantum mechanically coupled, promoting virtually loss-free energy movement. The system subsequently relaxes via “cooling”, i.e. by releasing energy in the form of heat. These observations demonstrate that quantum mechanical processes can play a major role in shaping key biological functions.

Research Report:Reassessing the role and lifetime of Qx in the energy transfer dynamics of chlorophyll a

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Solar Energy

HZB sets new efficiency record for CIGS perovskite tandem solar cells

Published

5 hours ago

February 5, 2025

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HZB sets new efficiency record for CIGS perovskite tandem solar cells

by Robert Schreiber

Berlin, Germany (SPX) Feb 05, 2025

Researchers at Helmholtz Center Berlin for Materials and Energy (HZB) and Humboldt University Berlin have developed a CIGS-perovskite tandem solar cell that has set a new world record for efficiency, achieving 24.6%. The performance of the cell has been officially certified by the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems.

Thin-film solar cells, such as those based on copper, indium, gallium, and selenium (CIGS), require minimal material and energy to manufacture, making them an environmentally friendly alternative to conventional silicon-based solar cells. CIGS thin films can also be applied to flexible substrates, expanding their potential applications.

The new tandem solar cell developed by HZB and Humboldt University combines a CIGS bottom cell with a perovskite top cell. By optimizing the contact layers between these two components, the research team successfully increased efficiency to a record-breaking 24.6%. This milestone was confirmed by the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE in Freiburg, Germany.

This achievement was made possible through a collaborative effort among researchers. The top cell was developed by Thede Mehlhop, a master’s student at TU Berlin, under the supervision of Stefan Gall. The perovskite absorber layer was created in the joint laboratory of HZB and Humboldt University Berlin, while the CIGS sub-cell and contact layers were fabricated by HZB researcher Guillermo Farias Basulto. Additionally, the KOALA high-performance cluster system at HZB was used to deposit the perovskite and contact layers in a vacuum.

“At HZB, we have highly specialized laboratories and experts who are top performers in their fields. With this world record tandem cell, they have once again shown how fruitfully they work together,” said Prof. Rutger Schlatmann, spokesman for the Solar Energy Department at HZB.

HZB has a strong track record in achieving world records in solar cell efficiency, including past accomplishments in silicon-perovskite tandem cells and now in CIGS-perovskite tandem technology.

“We are confident that CIGS-perovskite tandem cells can achieve much higher efficiencies, probably more than 30%,” said Prof. Rutger Schlatmann.