Scientists around the world, including in Hong Kong, have been working to develop flexible solar panels that could be used in innovative applications such as wearable technology (e.g., solar clothing) and curved surfaces (e.g., car roofs).
Even as scientists learn more every day about how to push the limitations of flexible solar, the industry hasn't developed a standard protocol for testing the efficiency of this technology — that is, not until early last month.
In December, scientists from the University of Rovira i Virgili in Spain joined a consortium of 23 photovoltaic and mechanical performance experts hailing from 12 countries to design the industry's first unified testing protocol for flexible solar, Tech Xplore reported.
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Energy independence ⚡ "There is a need for a unifying protocol to assess [flexible photovoltaic] performance, compare research results, and evaluate state-of-the-art achievements in flexible PVs," the experts said in the journal Nature Energy.
The protocols involved a host of good practice guidelines for testing flexible solar, including "bending procedures, flexibility testing with and without encapsulation, and ambient conditions during testing (for example, temperature, humidity and illumination)," they added.
These protocols give scientists hard metrics for evaluating the efficiency and performance of their flexible solar technology. Standardizing these metrics across the industry also allows researchers around the world to compare their flexible solar tech and adopt winning aspects in their work.
Flexible solar technology is a young but advancing industry that gives businesses and individuals the creative freedom to develop innovative technology that makes our lives easier.
For example, flexible solar technology could power sailboats at sea, recharge drones while out, and power heating or cooling jackets in the colder or warmer months.
With flexible solar technology, you don't need a bulky setup mounted to the ground or to your roof to enjoy the power and energy of the sun.
"The progress of these devices will demand new protocols with more appropriate ways of testing the stabilization, torsion and adhesion properties of the flexible solar cells of the future," Lluís F. Marsal, a researcher at the University of Rovira i Virgili, said, per Tech Xplore.
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