Tandem

Chinese perovskite solar technology company Renshine Solar (Suzhou) has announced 29.0% steady-state power conversion efficiency of all-perovskite tandem solar cell developed in-house. The company now expects to exceed 30% in 2023.

Japan Electrical Safety and Environment Technology Laboratories (JET) has reportedly certified the efficiency claim that was reported for a designated area of 0.04888 cm².

University of Sydney's Professor Anita Ho-Baillie is joining forces with Sydney-based renewable technology company SunDrive to commercialize perovskite-silicon cells, with backing from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) of AUD$2.78 million (over USD$1.9 million).

Other investigators on the project include Professor David McKenzie, Dr Jianghui Zheng and Dr Arafat Mahmud, who are based at the University of Sydney, and Mr Vince Allen, Mr David Hu and Professor Alison Lennon from SunDrive.

Researchers at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and University of Toledo have developed a new approach to manufacturing perovskite solar cells.

Developing highly stable and efficient perovskites based on a rich mixture of bromine and iodine is considered critical for the creation of tandem solar cells. However, issues with the two elements separating under solar cell operational conditions, such as light and heat, limit the device voltage and operational stability. This challenge is often made worse by the ready defect formation associated with the rapid crystallization of bromine-rich perovskite chemistry with antisolvent processes.

Researchers at Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin (HZB) recently announced a new tandem solar cell that converts 32.5% of the incident solar radiation into electrical energy.

The certifying institute European Solar Test Installation (ESTI) in Italy measured the tandem cell and officially confirmed this value which is also included in the NREL chart of solar cell technologies, maintained by the National Renewable Energy Lab, USA.

Researchers from EMPA (Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology), University of Cantabria and National Tsing Hua University have created a bifacial perovskite-CIGS tandem solar cell and developed a new low-temperature production process resulting in record efficiencies of 19.8% for front and 10.9% for rear illumination.

The idea is collecting direct sunlight, as well as its reflection via the rear end of the solar cell, which should increase the yield of energy the cell produces. Potential applications are, for instance, building-integrated photovoltaics, agrivoltaics – the simultaneous use of areas of land for both photovoltaic power generation and agriculture – and vertically or high-tilt installed solar modules on high-altitude grounds.

Meyer Burger Technology has signed multi-year cooperation agreements with CSEM from Switzerland, Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin (HZB), the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE in Freiburg, and the Institute of Photovoltaics at the University of Stuttgart, for the development of high-performance perovskite tandem solar cells and modules.

These activities are focused on the industrialization of the new technologies, moving from the laboratory to mass production with a view to the future expansion of gigawatt capacities at Meyer Burger’s production sites. The aim of the cooperation is the industrial production of solar cells with efficiencies of more than 30 percent.

Researchers from Eindhoven University of Technology, Delft University of Technology and TNO (partner in Solliance) have designed an integrated solar-assisted water-splitting system with a flow electrochemical cell and a monolithic perovskite-silicon tandem solar cell.

The team's work demonstrates how a perovskite/silicon tandem cell can be combined with a water electrolyzer system. However, the team said that there are still many steps that need to be taken before commercialization is possible. For example: upscaling the technology, addressing stability in greater detail, and use of more earth-abundant catalysts in the water-splitting reaction.

South Korea-based Qcells and a European research group (led by Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin (HZB)) have jointly established a pilot manufacturing line for silicon-perovskite tandem cells in Thalheim, Germany. The project aims to speed up the technology’s mass manufacturing and market penetration. The project began on 1 November.

The so-called "Pepperoni project" will establish a pilot manufacturing line in Thalheim, Qcell’s headquarters in Germany. The name stems from the broader project titled ‘Pilot line for European Production of PEROvskite-Silicon taNdem modules on Industrial scale' or PEPPERONI.

Scientists from the Centre for Solar Energy and Hydrogen Research Baden-Württemberg (ZSW) have achieved 21.1 percent efficiency with tandem perovskite - CIGS solar cells. These thin-film-based modules are highly efficient, light and flexible and can open doors to many new use cases for which standard rigid modules are not suitable.

ZSW’s tandem solar module has an area of nine square centimeters and achieves 21.1 percent efficiency. This prototype also features scalable component architecture suitable for industrial manufacturing. The best performance attained to date with tandem solar modules made of perovskite and CIGS is just slightly higher at 22 percent. ZSW has already achieved an excellent efficiency level of 26.6 percent with this combination of materials in smaller laboratory cells.

Researchers from Northwestern University, University of Toronto and the University of Toledo have developed an all-perovskite tandem solar cell with extremely high efficiency and "record-setting" voltage.

“Further improvements in the efficiency of solar cells are crucial for the ongoing decarbonization of our economy,” says U of T Engineering Professor Ted Sargent (ECE). “While silicon solar cells have undergone impressive advances in recent years, there are inherent limitations to their efficiency and cost, arising from material properties. Perovskite technology can overcome these limitations, but until now, it had performed below its full potential. Our latest study identifies a key reason for this and points a way forward.”