The ESPResSo consortium has been granted over €5million euro by the EU in a bid to overcome the limitations of current perovskite PV technology, to bring perovskite solar cells to the next maturity level, and to demonstrate their practical application.
The members of the consortium believe that with its low-cost materials and low temperature deposition processes, perovskite-based PV technology has the potential to takes its place in the thin-film PV market. Perovskite solar cells have already demonstrated high efficiencies (above 22%), ESPResSo adds, that rival those of established mainstream thin-film PV technologies like copper-indium-gallium-selenide and cadmium-telluride. The consortium says the challenge is now is to transfer the unprecedented progress that the perovskite PV cell technology has made in recent years from its cell level into a scalable, stable, low-cost technology on module level.
“Every aspect of our lives depends on the nonstop availability of energy,” states Tom Aernouts, imec group leader of thin-film photovoltaics. “Perovskite cells demonstrate clear potential to support world’s energy demands cost-effectively. The ultimate aim of the partners of the ESPResSo project is to achieve this by bringing perovskite photovoltaics from the lab to the fab.”
The ESPResSo team explains that it targets alternative cost-effective materials, novel cell concepts and architectures, and advanced processing know-how and equipment to overcome the current limitations of this technology.
The aim is to bring the cell performance close to its theoretical limit by demonstrating cell efficiency of more than 24% (on 1cm²) and less than 10% degradation in cell efficiency following thermal stress at 85°C, 85% RH for over 1000h. According to ESPResSo, scale up activities utilising solution processed slot-die coating and laser processing will additionally deliver modules with more than 17% efficiency showing long-term (>20 years) reliable performance as deduced from IEC-compliant test conditions.
The ESPResSo team also envisions integrating modules in façade elements demonstrating a levelised cost of electricity of ≤ 0.05€/kWh. The team believes prototyping advanced, arbitrary-shaped architectures with specific materials and process combinations will emphasise that new highly innovative applications like on flexible substrates or with high semi-transparency are well accessible in the mid to longer-term with thin-film PV technology.
