// hardware

Source: Canary Media

Tesla's bidirectional chargers convert the DC power stored in EV batteries back to AC for home use, collapsing the distinction between vehicle and stationary storage. This expands grid flexibility at the household level—utilities can draw power from parked cars during peak demand, while owners get backup power and arbitrage opportunities. The limiting factor is regulatory and utility infrastructure: whether grid operators and regulators will allow homeowners to participate in demand response markets, and whether utility rate structures will reward them for it. Engineering is solved. Policy and commercial incentives are not.

Source: pv magazine Global

A research team has demonstrated that Prussian blue, a cheap iron compound, can match the efficiency of today's best commercial silicon solar cells when used as a perovskite absorber layer. This matters because perovskites have long promised cheaper, flexible alternatives to silicon, but struggled with stability and manufacturing; using abundant iron instead of lead or tin sidesteps both toxicity concerns and rare-material supply chains. If durability holds up in field testing, the cost-per-watt advantage could pressure silicon manufacturers to accelerate efficiency gains or price cuts.

Source: pv magazine Global

Sodium-ion chemistry is moving from lab curiosity to commercial deployment, with CATL and other manufacturers shipping units at scale—a direct threat to the lithium-iron-phosphate monopoly that has defined the last decade of stationary storage. The chemistry trades some energy density for dramatically lower cost, zero supply chain choke points (sodium is abundant), and comparable safety, which makes it particularly dangerous to companies betting on lithium's defensibility in grid and residential applications. The stakes are logistics: if sodium-ion hits cost parity in the next 18-24 months, capital deployment in energy storage swings away from established lithium players, potentially stranding billions in planned LFP capacity additions.

Source: Slashdot: Hardware

A team at the University of [institution] has engineered tin-based perovskite solar cells that retain thermal energy 1,000 times longer than conventional silicon cells, potentially circumventing the Shockley-Queisser limit that has capped single-junction solar efficiency at 33% for decades. Using tin instead of lead reduces heat loss—addressing the largest source of wasted power in current photovoltaic design, where phonons (heat energy) escape before conversion. At scale and with viable manufacturing costs, this approach could deliver 40%+ efficiency gains.