Imec and Solliance Present Semi-Transparent Perovskite Modules
Nanoelectronics research centre Imec, partner in Solliance, has presented a semi-transparent perovskite PV-module, achieving power conversion efficiencies up to 12 percent.
Solliance is a partnership of R&D organisations from the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany working in thin film photovoltaic solar energy.
The technology would enable semi-transparent PV-windows, which are a key towards Zero-Energy Buildings. Moreover, combining these semitransparent perovskite modules with silicon solar cells, an unprecedented 20.2 percent in power conversion efficiency for a perovskite/Si stacked solar module was achieved.
Stand-alone perovskite solar modules feature excellent power conversion efficiencies and can be made with simple fabrication technologies, such as coating and printing. Perovskites can also be used on flexible (plastic films or metal foils) as well as rigid (glass, metal) carriers. Properties of the solar cells can be varied by tuning the composition of the material components to adjust colour and transparency.
The semi-transparent perovskite modules of Imec realised by scalable coating techniques showed efficiencies of 12 percent on sizes as large as 4 cm2 and 10 percent on sizes as large as 16cm2, a world-best achievement in this domain.
The combination of perovskite solar modules on top of silicon solar modules bears the exciting potential of achieving power conversion efficiencies greater than 30 percent, thereby surpassing the efficiencies of the best single junction Si solar cells, according to the copmay.
Imec's novel stacked module concept features a highly transparent perovskite solar module stacked on top of interdigitated back contacted (IBC) silicon solar cells. All devices had the same area and the semi-transparent perovskite top module shows a 70 percent transmission of light towards the crystalline Si solar cell.
A power conversion efficiency of 20.2 percent was reached for the resulting stacked perovskite/silicon solar module of relevant sizes of 4 cm2. Moreover, a power conversion efficiency of 17.2 percent was achieved for larger areas of up to 16cm2, employing a silicon bottom solar module of four interconnected IBC cells, also representing a record result for this size.
Tom Aernouts, thin film PV technology manager at Imec commented: "We are proud about these results as they show we have excellent control over the performance as well as the upscaling capabilities of this technology. Our future work will continue in increasing module sizes and optimizing the perovskite solar cell technology."
Ulrich Paetzold, researcher at the Thin Film PV group at Imec added: "With a mm-size perovskite solar cell stacked on our IBC solar cell even efficiency as high as 22 percent has been obtained. But advancement of the perovskite/Si stacked solar module technology relies on demonstrators of realistic sizes."
