Perovskite

On the first day of this year’s EU PVSEC conference, veteran solar researcher Pierre J Verlinden won the Becquerel Prize for Outstanding Merits in Photovoltaics. The award recognized more than 40 years as a leading PV researcher in academia and at leading companies including Sunpower and Trina Solar. Its recipient spoke to pv magazine about what is needed from solar to stave off catastrophic climate change.

Two of Germany’s leading research institutes and a CIGS module maker have announced plans to work on the development of perovskite-CIGS tandem cells with a target of producing thin film modules with better than 30% efficiency.

X-ray analysis is said to have solved the mystery of how to preserve optical absorption in perovskite layers. Researchers say the discovery could help stabilize the material and speed up the launch of a new ingredient for PV research.

The British-German perovskite startup has ordered a turnkey 100 MW silicon heterojunction solar cell line from the Swiss PV equipment supplier. The terms of the deal were not disclosed.

A research team from Russia’s institutes NUST MISIS and IPCE RAS, and Italy’s University of Rome Tor Vergata, have applied an additional layer of p-type copper iodide semiconductor between perovskite and the hole-transport NiO layer of the cell. According to the scientists, this inorganic material is more accessible and easy-to-use.

Scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have developed an accelerated process for screening new perovskite compounds as they search for those with the potential to be used in high efficiency solar cells. According to MIT, the process speeds up the synthesis and analysis of new compounds by a factor of ten and has already highlighted two sets of materials worthy of further study.

There was plenty of innovation on display at this year’s SNEC, which closed yesterday afternoon at the Shanghai New International Expo Center. The three-day exhibition ran from Tuesday to Thursday, was well attended and still ranks as the world’s largest solar energy trade show.

Doping perovksite solar cells with potassium is said to eliminate interface trapping defects and mobile ion migration. ‘Hysteresis suppression’ is key for more efficient cells based on the promising material.

Europe’s most important scientific research institutes have joined forces to make perovskite solar applications more than just a dream. The European Perovskite Initiative consortium is planning to draw up a perovskite white paper.

Researchers claim the cell they have developed is able to retain 90% of its efficiency after 1,000 hours under extreme light and heat conditions.