The Promise of Perovskite Solar Cells

if you wanted to design the ideal solar cell to power the world it would be efficient at converting sunlight into electricity made from inexpensive abundant materials it would be inexpensively manufactured at high throughput and could go onto any surface to power a range of applications even though silicon would not be at the top of most physicists list of ideal solar cell materials silicon solar cells currently account for about 95 percent of all solar cells produced benefiting from decades of semiconductor manufacturing infrastructure and engineering know-how silicon solar cells have increased in performance and dropped in price faster than almost anyone had anticipated but now they've come very close to reaching their theoretical efficiency limit and reaching the price floor this is where perovskite solar cells come in perovskite solar cells are not only very efficient at converting sunlight to electricity they are also very easy to make this means that a vast number of researchers around the world have been able to push perovskite solar cell's efficiencies faster than has ever been seen for a new solar cell technology in just 10 years perovskite solar cell efficiencies and research laboratories have almost matched those of silicon solar cells and are still rapidly rising though the efficiency of perovskites is competitive with silicon already silicon solar cells are proven to last for over 25 years and the manufacture has benefited from a lot of economies of scale the longevity of any new technology is difficult to predict and many people initially consider perovskite solar cells to be relatively unstable when exposed to the elements still much progress has been made over the last few years and perovskite solar cells can now pass several standardized tests that are commonly used to validate longevity of solar cells a lot needs to happen for perovskite silver cells to be a commercial success but this video should help explain why this challenge is worth taking on the term perovskite refers to the crystal structure of the semiconductor material used to make perovskite solar cells it is made up of several molecules and atoms which are abundant and inexpensive only a half micron thick layer of perovskite is needed for a solar cell which is 400 times thinner than the silicon solar cell this means that large-scale manufacturing of perovskites is unlikely to put a strain on material supply even as solar cell deployment continues to grow exponentially many solar cell technologies require high temperatures over a thousand degrees celsius and sometimes long times for the raw materials to crystallize into the final high quality solar cell materials high quality perovskite solar cell materials are formed very quickly and at low temperatures under 150 celsius picture production lines inexpensively printing solar cells on long rolls of plastic or large sheets of glass that move automatically through a factory such a factory could be significantly less expensive to build and to run than those that build today's solar panels this becomes especially important as the world ramps up solar panel production to meet climate targets in the future while some amount of energy is always required to make anything perovskite solar panels require five times less energy to produce in silicon and produce more electricity from the sun in just four months than it took to make them bear in mind that these panels will produce electricity for up to 25 years studies have also shown that the manufacture of perovskite solar panels will result in about five times less carbon emissions than the manufacture of silicon solar panels studies suggest that when scaled up manufacturing costs of forty dollars per meter squared could be achieved for perovski solar panels which translates to close to 10 cents per watt less than half the cost of today's silicon panels in fact the glass they are printed on is the most expensive part of the panel this gives perovskite panels a chance to provide the most economically attractive solar electricity around the globe an exciting property of perovskites is that their chemical makeup can be easily modified to change which energies of photons and colors of light can be converted into electricity this means perovskite materials can be used in tandem solar cell architectures where two materials of different colors are combined to give higher overall efficiencies than either one alone this raises a theoretical efficiency limit from silicon's 32 percent up to 45 percent for tandem perovskite solar cells [Music] because perovskite solar cells are so thin and are manufactured at low temperatures they can be made on glass metal foils or even lightweight plastics this versatility opens up lots of applications that are impossible with today's heavy and rigid panels imagine lightweight flexible solar panels made of perovskite materials that can be rolled out on a roof or on a field in a matter of minutes these panels could be easily transported to remote places that do not have access to the electrical grid such lightweight and efficient panels could even power things that move and fly such as cars satellites airplanes drones and trucks enabling an electric future

Channel: Swift Solar

Views: 16,276

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Id: 61QJKeln5Ao

Length: 4min 39sec (279 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 20 2022