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Ling Xin

A China-led team has cleared the last major hurdle in the race to commercialise the most promising alternative to conventional silicon solar technology, paving the way for the next generation of low-cost, high-efficiency panels to be made on an industrial scale.
Researchers from China and Canada, led by Nanjing University, have developed a super-stable coating for perovskite – an ultra-thin, lightweight material that can be printed onto large surfaces – suitable for patching the tiny defects that lead to wasted electricity.
Roughly the size of a dining table, the perovskite panel reached 22 per cent efficiency with a power output of 158.4 watts, while withstanding the heat, humidity and temperature extremes required for commercial use – a record for the technology at this scale.
According to their report, published last Wednesday by the journal Nature, the team also put the technology to the test outside the laboratory, installing a 1-megawatt perovskite system alongside a 3.5MW silicon facility at the same solar farm.
The researchers monitored performance for three months and concluded that, for the same installed capacity, the perovskite system consistently generated more electricity, the paper said.

The perovskite beat silicon by 3.42 per cent in March, 3.79 per cent in April and 5.81 per cent in May, with its advantage growing as temperatures rose and sunlight became stronger.
The scientists said their work showed “a robust, industry-ready” approach to making large perovskite solar modules and charted “a clear course” towards industrial-scale production.
“Our findings establish a new benchmark for manufacturable perovskite photovoltaics, where processability, durability and efficiency are no longer mutually exclusive but are engineered from the outset,” they wrote.
Solar panels create an electric current by using sunlight to free electrons in a semiconductor material.
They are the fastest-growing source of new power and supplied more than 8 per cent of global electricity last year. Solar power is also expected to overtake wind and nuclear power this year.
China is by far the industry’s biggest player, accounting for about 80 per cent of the world’s manufacturing capacity for solar panels and dominating the supply chain for key components.
Nearly all solar panels are made from silicon, an abundant and exceptionally durable material that has benefited from decades of industrial development.
But making them requires extremely pure silicon and energy-intensive processing, while their rigid, brittle cells make the finished panels heavy and inflexible.
In recent years, perovskites – typically made from elements such as lead and iodine – have emerged as the leading challenger. They can be made by spreading an extremely thin layer of a liquid mixture, potentially making production simpler and cheaper.
In the laboratory, perovskite cells have rapidly achieved efficiencies comparable to silicon. But maintaining that performance across much larger panels has proved difficult, partly because the protective coatings used on small cells are sensitive to moisture and difficult to apply evenly across large surfaces.


The researchers from Nanjing University and their collaborators had previously succeeded in making metre-scale perovskite panels, but at only 17.2 per cent efficiency, they were well below their high-performing silicon rivals.
To tackle the tiny surface defects that were holding back efficiency, the team redesigned the protective treatment for the new study.
They developed a way for an iodine-containing salt to naturally concentrate at the surface as the perovskite formed, creating a uniform base for a second coating made from lead carboxylates, the paper said.
The researchers concluded that, unlike conventional coatings which are vulnerable to moisture, the new treatment formed stable chemical bonds with the surface, patching defects more evenly across large panels.
It also helped the electrical charges flow more efficiently and protected the material against humidity, heat and prolonged sunlight, they wrote.
After 1,300 hours at 85 degrees Celsius (185 degrees Fahrenheit) and 85 per cent humidity, panels using the conventional treatment lost 39 per cent of their efficiency, compared with just 2 per cent for those using the new coating, according to the paper.
The study also recorded almost no efficiency loss after 300 cycles between minus 40 and 85 degrees, with the experimental panels passing the full series of international reliability tests required for commercial solar systems.
The authors said the results were the best yet for perovskite technology designed for industrial-scale production.
If the performance could be reproduced consistently on larger production lines and sustained over years of operation, it could bring the technology closer to competing with silicon in the global solar industry.
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China

Scientists develop ’robust, easy, industry-ready’ approach to making large, energy efficient modules from the ultra-thin material


Scientists develop ’robust, easy, industry-ready’ approach to making large, energy efficient modules from the ultra-thin material.


Canada

Nanjing University

China’s 1MW perovskite solar farm beats silicon system in industrial-scale test

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Scientists develop ’robust, easy, industry-ready’ approach to making large, energy efficient modules from the ultra-thin material

Scientists develop ’robust, easy, industry-ready’ approach to making large, energy efficient modules from the ultra-thin material