Perovskite solar cells

First Solar has agreed to pay $38 million to buy Swedish manufacturing startup Evolar AB, as it seeks to expand development of high-efficiency tandem PV tech.

The US National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has certified that a South Korean research team has achieved a 25.73% efficiency rating with a perovskite PV cell based on alkylammonium chlorides. The champion device built by the scientists reached an efficiency of 26.08%.

A US-Canadian group of scientists has used Lewis base molecules to improve surface passivation in a perovskite solar cell. The team produced a device with a high open-circuit voltage and remarkable stability levels.

A numerical study by researchers at India’s Chitkara University shows enhanced performance in the top device of a tandem solar cell based on copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS). The design had a higher open-circuit voltage, with the top cell acting as a current-limiting cell.

Researchers led by the University of Rochester claim to have increased the photoresponsivity of a lead-halide perovskite for solar cell applications by 250%. They created a perovskite film with a plasmonic substrate made of hyperbolic metamaterial and characterized it with transition dipole orientation.

A group of researchers from Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin (HZB) has achieved a new world efficiency record for a silicon-perovskite tandem solar cell, with a certified efficiency of 32.5%.

Australian manufacturer GreatCell has built a cell with roll-to-roll coating technology. It designed it without a hole transport layer (HTL) and used carbon composite back contacts, which offer excellent electrical conductivity.

The new energy arm of Reliance Industries has signed the agreement to acquire a 20% stake in California-based perovskite solar startup Caelux for $12 million. The investment will accelerate Caelux’ product development and commercialization.

Scientists have found that perovskite solar cells and perovskite-silicon tandems might be vulnerable to potential-induced degradation. They exposed tandem cell devices to PID stress and found that they lost as much as 50% of their initial performance after just one day.

Scientists in Switzerland put together a detailed analysis of the projected costs of designing and operating a 100 MW perovskite solar cell production line in various locations, taking in labor and energy costs as well as all materials and processing. The found that perovskite PV could be cost-competitive with other technologies even at much smaller scale, but noted that this still depends on the tech proving its long-term stability, and impressive achievements in research being successfully transferred to commercial production.