An animal-tracking system by Saule Technologies will support the monitoring of European bison in Ukraine. Local partner World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) Ukraine, WWF Poland and Saule Technologies will cooperate on the “Perovskite Solar Module Enabled IOT Asset Tracking for Wildlife Conservation” initiative under the Challenge Fund: Polish Solutions for SDGs Fund, with the financial support of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Poland.

Bohdan Vykhor, PhD, Wildlife Programme manager at the WWF Ukraine, explains that bison population recovery is an ongoing process. “The species was reintroduced to various areas in Europe with significant efforts from different wildlife conservation programs (WWF, LHI, COA, IUCN, LIFE EU) and great work should be done in the future. We need to connect the free moving bison population divided across Europe and support natural gene flow. Using tracking systems on captive animals is an important element for understanding their behavior in the natural environment, ecological corridors and crucial habitats for different stages of their life cycle - so vital data is key to the success of species conservations.”

Researchers in Germany have sent perovskite and organic solar cells on a rocket into space. The solar cells withstood the extreme conditions in space, producing power from direct sunlight and reflective light from the Earth's surface. The work sets the foundation for future near-Earth applications as well as potential deep space missions.

One of the goals for space missions is to minimize the weight of equipment that the rocket carries. While current inorganic silicon solar panels used in space missions and satellites have high efficiencies, they are also very heavy and rigid. The emerging technology of hybrid perovskite and organic solar cells that are incredibly light and flexible becomes an ideal candidate for future applications.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DoE) recently announced $20 million in funding to advance perovskite photovoltaic technologies. To be competitive in the marketplace, perovskite’s long-term durability must be tested and verified, which is the aim of this funding opportunity through DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE).

“Perovskites are a promising solar technology that could help us reach the next level of innovative and efficient solar power,” said Deputy Secretary of Energy Mark W. Menezes. “Our goal is to further advance this technology here in the United States. The research and development supported by this $20 million investment will help us better understand how perovskite solar cells, which can be manufactured quickly, can further this mission.”

A recent research by Barry Rand, associate director for external partnerships and associate professor of electrical engineering and the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment, with a team of researchers, has advanced perovskite-based LEDs by significantly improving the stability and performance by better managing the heat generated by the LEDs.

The research identifies several techniques that reduce the accumulation of heat within the material, which extended its lifetime tenfold. When the researchers prevented the device from overheating, they were able to pump enough current into it to produce light hundreds of times more intense than a typical cell phone display. The intensity, measured in watts per square meter, reflects the real amount of light coming from a device, uninfluenced by human eyes or the color of the light. Previously, such a level of current would have caused the LED to fail.