Microquanta Semiconductor, a China-based thin-film PV firm, has announced a new efficiency record for perovskite mini-modules: 15.24%, certified by Newport PV Lab in Montana, US. The tested mini-module has an aperture size of more than 16 cm2.
Microquanta said that by passing the 15% efficiency milestone for the first time, it has moved significantly closer towards commercialization of perovskite solar cells. It also claimed that perovskite mini-modules are desirable since they can reduce the manufacturing cost of current c-Si based solar cells by between 60-80%.
Scientists explain that 'until now, one of the bottlenecks in bringing perovskite solar panels to market has been the drop in performance in a module, where many cells are linked together, compared to a single cell. Before this breakthrough the best performance of a perovskite mini-module was 12.1%, and now Microquanta have pushed the record to 15.2%.'
An industrially-applicable roll-to-roll process for the production of perovskite solar cells achieving a record 12.6% efficiency was recently achieved by Solliance, a partnership of R&D organizations from the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany working on thin film photovoltaic solar energy.