20% more powerful perovskite solar panels enter commercial use
oxfordpv.com
oxfordpv.com
[1] Mostly from listening to the Skeptic's Guide podcast, which frequently covers green energy research.
The cost of silicon solar modules is projected to drop below 10cents/Watt this year and will keep dropping. The major cost of solar is now the installation and grid interconnect. Since these cells have serious problems with lifetime (years at best vs decades for silicon), all indications are that they will be much more expensive at the system level.
In my opinion the major barrier to solar adoption is not efficiency but integrated operation. For instance, my roof has enough area to support a 20kW system, but the utility will only let me put up a 4kW array due because they can't accept the extra energy and stay profitable. This business model problem is not related to efficiency but the result of resistance to distributed energy strategies from utilities who can't understand how to avoid bankruptcy and move away from a centralized power plant based grid.
Transmission congestion might be a more important issue than profitability: "Avoiding the congestion is essential for a competitive electricity market and is one of the toughest problems of its design." [1]
The course of Damien Ernst [2] gives an excellent overview of all the challenges related to decentralized electricity markets.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transmission_congestion
[2]: https://damien-ernst.be/teaching/elec0018-1-energy-markets/
An example of this is that, where I live, some depreciated hydro assets produce power at $0.0025/kWh but the electricity rate is $0.11-0.14/kWh. It is not unusual for the majority of the cost of electricity be in debt and equipment maintenance rather than generation.
If I generate electricity on my roof then the utility is screwed from both ends, they must credit me way more than it costs them to generate their own electricity, and feeding electricity into a grid not designed for it adds further wear and tear to the components. Their revenue goes down and their costs go up.
Unsurprisingly, given their sunk costs and the prospect of defaulting on huge bond obligations, they will not permit me to install a rooftop array that will generate more than 40% of my usage, even if paired with large battery systems.
How can one take advantage of cheap panels and have quality work done on the roof?
I've been looking at upgrading my rooftop solar in Australia, since we have had 5kW on the roof for close to 15 years now. Ill put away the pennies for a few more years and pull the trigger at a similar time to when we get our first EV / PHEV with V2G.
Why is your system so expensive? Storage?
https://www.solarquotes.com.au/blog/powerwall-3-launch/
Two of those is $27,200 minus installation and some solar panels to feed them (but the PW3 does have 3x 6.6kW solar MPPTs built-in unlike previous ones, so all you need to do is connect the panels directly to the PW3 and then the PW3 to your home).
Teach your kids how the blue collar trades are a better deal than a college degree, wait a decade or two, and contractor labor prices should be reasonable again.
He bought used panels so the actual input may be a little lower than rated (though it doesn’t seem much lower), but he says he sees some ads for new panels nearly as cheap as he paid for used ones 5 years ago.
The only supply side outage that comes to my mind is the Texas cold snap messing with the gas plants.
It's very unlikely that a centralized grid will go away, society wants 100% energy availability 100% of the time. So like everything else, people are just going to have to pay for it. The same way you pay for schools even if you don't have kids or pay for roads even if you don't have a car.
The strategy that I like is to build out distributed systems in "non-integrated areas". These are locations that are not served by the grid and often have a tiny local grid that provides high cost electricity (~1$/kWh). These areas represent test beds for distributed energy tech and might be a place where de-costing and scaling strategies could be developed.
Another strategy is to wait for baby boomers to die. :)
State of the art moves quickly not long ago projects were budgeting for new batteries every 5 years in order to be able to meet energy guarantees
> when they use so many toxic materials ... but degrades faster
At some point, we need to consider that "labour cost becomes dominant" is absolutely irrelevant if the external costs we're completely ignoring at enormous.
Yes. Anything that lets us offline coal plants faster will save lives. Assuming all else is equal, it's literally free energy. Why wouldn't you want that? What a bizarre question.
> A panel that is 5% better, but degrades faster might not be an economic win for a commercial power plant.
Obviously you have to multiply efficiency by longevity. If that equation didn't work out, they wouldn't be commercializing it.
I agree with that. But all else is not equal. The more efficient panels are much more expensive than the regular panels (and there are no signs of this changing any time soon). Cheaper regular panels (and prices are still falling) are more helpful. Aside from which, panels are already cheap enough for cheap energy. It's energy storage costs (and availability of storage technology in general) that are the blocker at this point.
> Obviously you have to multiply efficiency by longevity. If that equation didn't work out, they wouldn't be commercializing it.
I suspect they won't be commercialised for grid-scale power plants. They'll likely be used in space, and perhaps on things like boats and RVs where space is also at a premium.
I'm pretty confident we'll be replacing silicon panels with another, more efficient tech before long. Something will bust through silicon's efficiency barrier. It may or may not be perovskite-based panels, who knows, buit I still think it's exciting to see the research & gains in this area. It's great to have more options coming online.
Right now it is mandatory to install in Germany after a major roof renovation. Turns out the typical small home electric needs are about 1000 EUR per year, the installation of a solar system is about 25000. I do not see what is free…
The electrical needs of most homes is fairly fixed. The price of that electricity can change at any time. So why 1000€ and not 5000€.
You should not come above 1,5€ per Wp of solar. so for a 4500wp system, 6750€ and that is a high price and will provide more energy than consumed.
Sure, but assume all else is not equal, and suddenly energy has costs again. Why is "free energy" the default assumption? What a bizarre assertion.
I'd have assumed a tandem perovskite on silicon panel probably costs more than a traditional silicon one. Do you disagree?
Here, I'll spell it out a bit more:
Assume the mfr is not lying and the panels are 20% more efficient.
Assume that in order to commercialize a new product, it must be cost competitive with existing options. Otherwise no one would choose it, and it would not be commercialize-able.
Therefore, it is a reasonable position to assume that the new panels will give 20% more energy for about the same cost.
This is all hand-wavey, and it is of course possible the commercialization will fail. But until that happens, I think it's pretty cool that we have new tech coming to the market that's showing significant efficiency improvements!
I think this is amazing tech too, but you're maintaining "this is free energy" with zero evidence outside of a press release that does not mention cost. I'm sorry, this isn't hand-wavey, it's flat-out misinformation. If you have actual information on pricing, please share it.
No I'm not. I'm assuming it's commercially viable, or else they wouldn't be trying to put it into production.
The context of the post you're being weird about was a reply to someone saying "Do we need [solar panel] efficiency gains?", I wasn't specifically talking about the numbers of this tech in that post.
> > Do we need efficiency gains? Like more is better, but in the US, land is cheap in many areas.
> Yes. Anything that lets us offline coal plants faster will save lives. Assuming all else is equal, it's literally free energy. Why wouldn't you want that? What a bizarre question.
I'm sorry if I'm being weird. It really looks like you're arguing efficiency is something standing in the way of saving lives.
When comparing silicon and perovskite (and probably any other material) this is a bad assumption. Since this is a bad assumption, the rest of your position falls apart.
What position is that?
why?
There are places where more efficient panels would be useful. With rooves, where if spending effort to mount them then might be worth using more efficient panels. Or the flexible panels might be easier to mount.
Huh? Can you point out where I said we should wait?
It is unlikely that perovskite panels will ever get cheap enough for efficiency gain to matter unless there is some breakthrough in production. Current solar panels have too much of a head start.
No I'm not. I'm not arguing for anything. I'm excited to have more options for solar deployments! If the best option for a current time & deployment is silicon, then great! Use silicon! If perovskite does nothing more than put price pressure on silicon to get even cheaper, then that's great, too! I'm excited about green technologies :)
> It is unlikely that perovskite panels will ever get cheap enough for efficiency gain to matter unless there is some breakthrough in production
We'll see! We're pretty good at making improvements. Will perovskite see the same amazing price drop that silicon has? I don't know, but I'm excited to see the first step in that possible path happening.
This thread has been a wild exercise in people tripping all over their own feet in their huge rush to educate me that a new technology is not some flawless miracle device, lol.
My impression is that when the sun shineth, raw solar is almost too cheap to meter... But everything else costs money.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perovskite_solar_cell
N.b the long section on lead toxicity concerns.
Solar panels are generally pretty toxic to the environment. Even the silicon panels contain lead.
There's a pretty dark side to renewables that not many want to see.
https://www.wired.com/story/solar-panels-are-starting-to-die...
> Solar panels are generally pretty toxic to the environment
Nuclear waste is famously clean and Three Gorges Dam has caused the Earth to alter its rotation.
Lunch is not free and never will be free. Part of the problem is pretending that it is or that my one true solution will solve all the problems of the world.
I have heard 4th generation nuclear is pretty clean.
You heard wrong. 4th generation nuclear doesn't actually exist anywhere but on paper.
I hear nuclear fusionand perpetual motion machines are pretty clean.
This means it's pertinent to ask: is the quantity of waste from renewables important compared to the quantity of these produced by society in general?
And the answer is "no". So the problem of dealing with such waste has to be dealt with anyway by society; the waste of renewable energy sources just increments the problem slightly.
This is different from nuclear energy, which introduces an entirely new kind of waste not produced by society in general.
A great deal of time and money was spent on nuclear reactors that destroy actinides. The conclusion is it's considerably more expensive than the nuclear technology we have now. That's why it's not being done.
Thousands of tons of concrete are poured into the soil for the foundation of one wind turbine, and the foundation is likely never removed, creating ecological implications.
And wind turbines also can not be recycled and go to landfills.
With nuclear energy, the newest 4th generation reactors are closed systems that consume their own nuclear waste, so there is no final disposal problem.
Almost certainly better than nuclear though, right?
> Increased methylmercury concentrations in water and fish have been detected after flooding of soils associated with reservoir creation (e.g. for hydroelectric power generation)
-- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methylmercury#Environmental_so...
> hybrid perovskites are very unstable and easily degrade to rather soluble compounds [...], which significantly increases their potential bioavailability and hazard for human health
Even if we're super careful about how we install and interact with substances like these ourselves, once we put it in our living environment it's going to come back to us the long way around through the food chain.
From the main wiki article on lead [0]:
> Lead has no confirmed biological role, and there is no confirmed safe level of lead exposure.
That seeeeems unlikely to me. We know the dangers of lead now, and it is treated much more carefully. It's absolutely good to be aware of, but I don't think we're going to make the same mistake.
Also worth considering that coal & garbage-fueled plants output lead directly into the atmosphere[1], so if these help take coal plants offline, it's still a gain even if they aren't perfect.
[1] https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/doi/abs/10.1289/isee.2021.P-143
Like we don't cover our roofs with solar panels made from lead crystals.
Facing a crowd of journalists, inventor Thomas Midgley Jr. poured a lead additive over his hands and then proceeded to inhale its fumes for about a minute. Unfazed, he said, “I could do this every day without getting any health problems whatsoever.”
Soon afterward, Midgley needed medical treatment.This could actually be a pretty massive issue in theory on its own, though. We really need to be covering/converting parking spaces and reusing existing land waste.
So yeah, I see issues.
That does not mean we should dismiss the issue.
Brass has lead in it. That's a lot of doorknobs, faucets, and zippers touched every day.
Plumbing brass has traditionally contained high levels of lead, but it's not supposed to anymore, except for things intended for non-drinking-water purposes, which unfortunately includes outdoor water spigots.
I wouldn't be shocked in doorknobs had lead in them beyond trace amounts, but it isn't guaranteed.
Having lead really sours my take on them. Everything from production to deployment to recycling gets worse.
https://www.internationaltin.org/oxford-pv-moving-toward-nex...
[1] https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2014-05-01-lead-out-tin-cheap-sola...
If the panels were 20% more efficient, you'd want 1 -1/1.20 = 16.7% less of them.
>The 72-cell panels, comprised of Oxford PV’s proprietary perovskite-on-silicon solar cells, can produce up to 20% more energy than a standard silicon panel. They will be used in a utility-scale installation
>Oxford PV has been developing and working to commercialise this technology since 2014, with a recent module efficiency record of 26.9%.
20% more powerful then means a 24% efficiency.
According to Wikipedia: As of 2024, the world record for solar cell efficiency is 47.6%, set in May 2022 by Fraunhofer ISE, with a III-V four-junction concentrating photovoltaic (CPV) cell.
To me, this means that the new cells are 4% more efficient.
To their marketing team it means that they are 20% more powerful.
Edit: Got it, the marketing team is accurate.
People seem to treat percentages differently from other numbers, when all it means is "divide by 100." Nobody complains when you say going from 9% to 18% is "doubling in efficiency" but if you say it is "100% more efficient" or "200% as efficient" then people complain.
Sounds like the marketing team is right about this one.
If the panels were 100% efficient, the heat would just move around and none of the energy would be radiated back to space, so it would be similar to a Vantablack level of absorption of energy.
Let's look at the state-of the art: The most carefully done research article I could find (2022, written with authors from Oxford PV, so take it with whatever size NaCl dose is appropriate): https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2022/se/d2se0...
Surely, since this study relied heavily on empirical data, they would have used empirically measured degradation rates in their models? Well, nope. Check out these gems:
"Oxford PV succeeded in mitigating stability-related deficits and aims at providing future buyers of their modules with the industry-standard 25 year performance guarantee." So, _aims at_.
"Due to the proven stability improvements [_citation needed_], no distinction is made between the PST [perovskite-on-silicon tandem] and SHJ [silicon heterojunction] modules with regard to the degradation rate." So, they ASSUME the exact same degradation rate as silicon heterjunction solar cells.
Sure, if the degradation rates are truly equal (or even, not terribly worse for PST) then I would believe. But the claim of lower LCOE today (compared to SHJ? they don't say) needs some more evidence, because this is an extraordinary claim in my opinion.
The fact that I can't find any lifetime data on these panels is what I find really disturbing - that is the #1 problem with perovskite-based cells, and if they really have solved the degradation problem they would be shouting it from the rooftops and publishing their data. Every claim they make about cost hinges on the details of the degradation curves.
I'm not the only one who knows this to be the case, BTW: From https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2024/05/24/perovskites-move-into...
" “None of these companies can guarantee the stability of their modules for 25 years,” said Jülich’s Ding. Despite promising results in the laboratory, the durability of perovskite solar cells remains a challenge – both alone and in tandem devices. There is a lack of concrete information from the manufacturers, as well as a lack of measurement data from long-term outdoor use or standards for tough tests that simulate real-life loads of up to 25 years."
I'd love to be wrong, but my prediction is there will be a one-time buy, and the news will go quiet about this. Perovskite has a niche, but it isn't ready for utility-scale solar.
The panels themselves are basically free.
The mounting system and the inverter are the expensive part.
If 20% more power is produced per panel, you need 5/6 as many panels your project is straight up 16% cheaper.
If anything, your statement about the panels being free and the balance of system and installation cost being expensive make efficiency improvements even more impactful.
The main historical issue with perovskite cells is damage and lifetime, which again directly relate to how many times you need to do these big capital investments. If they last twice as long you need to deal with half as much installation and mounting work over the lifetime.
I had two spigots installed on an already there pipe, on two ends. 1100 chf. material cost was 400, the rest is labor at 125/h.
So I just tend to learn a lot of this stuff from YouTube, but obviously I do a lot worse job than someone doing this for years as a living.
I'd totally believe that more power requires more expensive inverters, but on its own, your comment doesn't make sense.
I agree that they're sure to have a price premium, and reliability will need testing...
I’d love to swap out my panels for 20% more in the same space if it’s practical.