ACAP researchers shine at IEEE PV Specialists Conference 53 in Montreal

ACAP researchers including Professors Dan Macdonald (ANU) and Dr Heping Shen (ANU) are being recognised for their significant contributions at the 53rd IEEE Photovoltaic Specialists Conference (PVSC 53), being held in Montreal, Canada.

Organised by the IEEE Photonics Society and the IEEE Electron Devices Society, PVSC is the longest-running technical conference dedicated to photovoltaics, having been established in 1961. This is the first year that the conference has been held outside of the US. The conference is known for its rigorous peer-review process, ensuring high-quality presentations and proceedings. It also offers tutorials and plenary sessions led by leading experts in the field, providing attendees with opportunities to deepen their knowledge and engage with cutting-edge research.

Professor Dan Macdonald shares insights on the future of silicon solar cell technology 

ACAP ANU Node Lead Professor Dan Macdonald gave a popular plenary presentation titled, “Towards 27% efficient silicon solar cells in mass production” discussing the current state and likely future direction of industrial silicon cells.

Professor Macdonald is a world leading expert with over 25 years’ experience in the design, fabrication and characterisation of crystalline silicon solar cells, and has led multiple industry-supported projects on the commercialisation of high efficiency n-type cells.

Industrial silicon solar cells continue to improve in efficiency, with multiple reports of full-size cells above 26% in recent years, using both silicon heterojunction (SHJ) and doped poly-silicon (TOPCon) technologies.

Professor Macdonald began by reviewing some of the key advances that have made this rapid progress possible, including improvements in silicon wafers, surface passivation, and low-recombination metallisation. He then moved to discuss in detail the relative advantages and disadvantages of SHJ and TOPCon technologies, both in terms of performance and cost.

Building on this understanding, Macdonald discussed likely future directions, including alternative architectures such as back contact cells, to enable over 27% efficient cells in mass production at low cost in the medium term.   

Associate Professor Heping Shen wins prestigious Stuart R Wenham Young Professional Award

The Stuart R. Wenham Young Professional Award was presented to Associate Professor Heping Shen from the School of Engineering at the Australian National University.

Heping said, “This award not only recognises my impactful contributions to photovoltaics but also highlights ANU’s achievements and its long-standing international leadership in the PV field.”

After receiving the award, Shen presented her talk “Towards Cost-Effective Perovskite/Silicon Tandem Solar Cells” to a packed room.

“My presentation focused on next-generation tandem solar cells – technologies designed to surpass the efficiency limits of traditional single-junction silicon solar cells while further reducing the cost of solar electricity,” said Shen.

“I shared our recent progress in developing high-efficiency, low-cost tandem structures that are more scalable and stable, as well as the innovative tandem solar cell architectures, the world's simplest, pioneered by the ANU team. These innovations have contributed to speeding up the commercialisation of perovskite/silicon tandem solar cell technology and thereby the acceleration of the global transition to more affordable and sustainable solar energy.”

There was lively discussion during the Q&A session around innovative cell architectures, device stability, cost considerations and industrially relevant fabrication processes. Prof. David Mitzi (Duke University, USA), the recipient of the William R. Cherry Award, and other senior researchers in the field had high praise for Shen’s talk.

 Associate Professor Heping Shen (ANU) was awarded the Wenham Young Professional Award at PVSC 53 in Montreal in June, 2025 (seen here in the middle with the award). On the left is Tyler Grassman, IEEE PVSC Conference Chair. On the right is Amma Nayfeh, Awards Co-Chair.

Three ACAP presenters named Student Presentation Award Finalists

Gaia Maria Javier (UNSW) was named Best Student Presentation Award Finalist for her presentation “Automated Analysis of Performance Losses in Solar Cells Using Explainable AI”.

Javier explained that production-scale datasets are vast and complex, making it difficult to pinpoint what drives efficiency losses. “We’ve developed a fully automated workflow that leverages machine learning to analyse cell measurements, then uses explainable artificial intelligence (AI) to identify the key parameters behind performance degradation.”

Best Student Presentation Award Finalist Gaia Maria Javier presenting at PVSC 53 in Montreal.

Grace Liu (UNSW) was named a finalist for her presentation “Evaluating Statistical Degradation Rate Calculation Methods Using Current-Voltage Measurements of Fielded Modules.”

PV asset managers often rely on statistical methods (e.g., linear regression, year-over-year analysis) to estimate site degradation, but their accuracy has not been rigorously benchmarked. In the talk, Grace introduced “ground-truth” degradation datasets – both synthetic and real-world – and use them to show how popular statistical approaches perform in practice. Be ready for some surprising insights.

Zhiwen Zheng (UNSW) was named a Best Student Presentation Award Finalist for his presentation “Outdoor Photoluminescence Imaging of III-V Multijunction Solar Cells under Direct Sunlight”

III-V multijunction cells are central to concentrated photovoltaics (CPV), but in-field inspection tools have lagged behind. Zheng explained that they demonstrated, for the first time, contactless outdoor PL imaging of these cells under direct concentrated sunlight. By optimising optical filters for each subcell, the researchers achieved high signal-to-noise ratios – opening the door to reliable, spatially resolved performance diagnostics for CPV systems in real-world conditions.

Other presentations

UNSW SPREE’s Head of School Gavin Conibeer presented on PV Education at UNSW, while

Professor Ziv Hameiri (UNSW) was an organising committee member for one of the  symposia.

Anh Huy Tuan Le (UNSW) presented “Accelerating Regeneration of Silicon Solar Cells Impacted by Light- and Elevated Temperature-Induced Degradation under Field-Related Conditions”.

Light- and elevated temperature-induced degradation (LeTID) can significantly erode module performance in the field. The work introduces an advanced current-injection protocol – enabled by bi-directional inverter technology – that speeds up LeTID recovery.

 Anh Huy Tuan Le said, “We present implementation guidelines for utility-scale PV plants and demonstrate the compelling economic benefits through a preliminary techno-economic analysis.”

Anh Huy Tuan Le presenting at PVSC 53.