perovskite

pv magazine USA is at Solar Power International in Salt Lake City, Utah this week and showing off some hardware from the floor. And most impressive is that innovation is still happening in solar modules, but also in many other complementary technologies.

In the first edition of pv magazine USA’s morning brief, we bring you announcements of new faces on the boards of Tesla and NextEra Energy Partners, an analysis of the technical potential of floating solar, new price information and more.

Researchers at the University of Amsterdam have found what they describe as conclusive evidence that perovskites feature “efficient carrier multiplication,” effectively increasing the single layer efficiency limit from 33% to 44%.

Researchers and Berkeley Lab have discovered a shade of blue – dating back to ancient Egypt – which has impressive qualities they say could reduce building energy consumption and boost solar energy output. Meanwhile, NREL has developed a perovskite cell material that could be applied to a substrate using a paintbrush.

By double stacking a perovskite-silicon solar cell and using the cell in a glass-on-glass bifacial solar module, scientists model that a 30-36% efficient solar module can be attained.

ASU researchers have determined that a 32% efficient perovskite-silicon tandem cell could produce electricity at the same price as cutting-edge 22% efficient panels in the most cost-competitive of situations.

A team from the U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has developed a novel microscopic technique, which enables them to observe degradation in perovskite materials at the nano-scale and pinpoint key areas to improve the stability and durability of the material.

Japan’s Toshiba has fabricated a perovskite solar cell mini-module with an energy conversion rate of 10.5%, which it claims is now the highest rate that has been reached throughout the world with a multi-cell mini-module.

Mimicking a compound eye of a fly, Stanford University scientists have packed tiny perovskite cells into a hexagon-shaped epoxy resin scaffold, improving the material’s durability when exposed to moisture, heat and mechanical stress in a breakthrough that may open the door to the awaited improvement in perovskite’s operational stability.

In another breakthrough for the material so many solar advocates hope will replace traditional silicon in module production, a group of scientists in China and the United States have produced the first monocrystalline perovskite cell, which could accelerate its acceptance as a silicon replacement.