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Comment by extrapickles | Hacker News Reader

You can buy ~30%, and labs have demonstrated ~40%.

This could make multi-junction cells cheaper if they have solved some of the durability issues with perovskite.

What's interesting about the last ten years is previously the cells dominated the cost of panels. But they are so cheap that other costs, glass, aluminum, manufacturing, installation are significant. That starts pushing you back towards higher efficiency solar cells.

But yeah everything I've read about perovskite is it's got problems with moisture. There are reports from the field of 30 year old silicon based panels that 'work fine'. Since solar panels have high capital costs the more durable, the lower the depreciation rate the better.

Edit: Just a caution. A lot of work was done over the last 50-60 years on alternatives to Silicon for semiconductors and outside of a few niches[1] they've all failed.

[1] Examples: Gallium Arsenide for high performance RF. Silicon Carbide for high temp power transistors. Various materials for LED's.

Gallium Nitride for power supplies and >20GHz RF.

What is the price at which you could buy ~30%? Ultimately, the useful parameter is LCOE.

Spectrolab XTJ Prime cells are 30.7% efficient (and fall to 26.7% over 15 years), but I suspect they are on the order of $10-100/W as they are space rated and the minimum order quantity is not kind. The LCOE of them is amazing if you are building something in orbit, not so much for things on the ground or air.

Similarly the Azur Space are roughly $200 for the 8x4cm cell, and they are also space rated.

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