Metal halide perovskite solar cells (PSCs) are presently attracting immense research interest on the global level due to the meteoric rise of their solar to electric power conversion efficiency (PCE) to over 22 % within a period of only a few years. However, these high PCE values have so far been reached only with very small devices having an illuminated area of typically less than 0.2 cm2. Also, such top-performing cells exhibit often poor stability. This raises the crucial question whether the reported impressive PCEs can be maintained upon scaling up to large area cells, while simultaneously achieving long–term stability. Our POC project addresses these two critical issues. The key goal is to demonstrate that PSCs can be produced on the module level as a solar power source at lower cost as a solar power source than competing PV technologies i.e. silicon solar and thin film, e.g. CdTe cells. A recent cost analysis by NREL predicts that PSC modules with 16 % PCE could be produced at a cost of only 0.3 US$/peak watt which is about half that required for silicon PV and still far below that of CdTe modules. The latter currently offers the cheapest technology for solar cell manufacturing. A key goal of our study is to show that the price of solar power produced by these printable PSCs is below grid parity and can compete with other renewable sources.
In this project, we developed 1cm2 laboratory PSCs reaching PCE of 20%. In collaboration with Greatcell Solar as a subcontractor we performed a scale up of PSCs from lab scale to industry relevant 100 cm2 sized PV modules. PSC PV modules were fabricated utilizing scalable fabrication techniques that have been developed in-house by Greatcell Solar that enable mass production of low cost, stable PV modules. With a 100 cm2 sized PV modules 10% PCE and enhanced durability was demonstrated by 1000 h light soaking and damp heat (85 °C/85 % relative humidity) exposure trials. In collaboration with Spinverse as a subcontractor we performed market research, IPR analysis and identified potential investors and/or companies for the perovskite solar cells. It is estimated that by 2030 the penetration of perovskite technology including advanced III-V PV will be around 9% compared to present 0.6%.
