Nevelyn shared this link
Inside the New Technology That Could Transform the Solar Power Industry
"The future of perovskites is breathtaking."
Source: time.com
Nevelyn’s Insights
What’s new in solar? Perovskite solar cells that can be painted onto a surface to capture the sun’s energy. This material is more efficient than current solar panels and provides flexibility. Once painted on a surface, they can be attached to virtually anywhere. How long will it take this scientific breakthrough to transition from testing in the lab to flying off the shelves?
So far quite a while. First of all, see the paper linked below.
https://www.energycentral.com/c/pip/photovoltaic-technologies-%E2%80%93-past-present-and-future-part-2
This is part 2 of this paper, which contains the subsection on perovskite PVs. Part 1 can be accessed vial a link in the start of part 2.
I wrote my first paper on perovskites in late 2016. At that point Oxford PV was predicting they would be sampling production prototype tandem panels by 2017, and this still hasn’t happened yet. Colleagues pointed out that silicon was well ahead in production technology, and even though they can’t reach the theoretical efficiency of perovskites (or tandems) their price per watt continues to come down rapidly, and peak efficiency is much less important than price/watt. Silicon cells are now shipping 20% efficiency (with 20-year lifetimes) and the maximum projected for perovskites is around 30%.
My guess is it’s about 50/50 whether perovskites will find a niche (like die sensitized cells) or eventually become competitive with silicon.
-John