Roadmap for cost-effective, commercially-viable perovskite silicon tandems for the current and future PV market
A techno-economic analysis of perovskite-silicon tandem solar modules is presented, outlining the most viable pathway for designing cost-effective, commercially viable tandems. We explore the cost-performance trade-off for silicon bottom cells in perovskite-silicon tandems, and evaluate the potentia...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
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Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC)
2020
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| Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/123800 |
| _version_ | 1811081975213064192 |
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| author | Sofia, Sarah Elizabeth Wang, Hao Bruno, Annalisa Cruz-Campa, Jose Luis Buonassisi, Anthony Peters, Ian Marius |
| author2 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering |
| author_facet | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering Sofia, Sarah Elizabeth Wang, Hao Bruno, Annalisa Cruz-Campa, Jose Luis Buonassisi, Anthony Peters, Ian Marius |
| author_sort | Sofia, Sarah Elizabeth |
| collection | MIT |
| description | A techno-economic analysis of perovskite-silicon tandem solar modules is presented, outlining the most viable pathway for designing cost-effective, commercially viable tandems. We explore the cost-performance trade-off for silicon bottom cells in perovskite-silicon tandems, and evaluate the potential of using low-cost, lower-efficiency silicon bottom cells, on the basis of levelized cost of electricity (LCOE), compared to the higher-efficiency, higher-cost bottom cells that have been the primary focus of most perovskite-silicon tandem research efforts. We fabricate a cost-effective four-terminal silicon-perovskite tandem using a low-cost multicrystalline bottom cell and calculate the device LCOE. We then extend this analysis by modeling performance and LCOE of similar tandems instead using high-efficiency silicon bottom cells, enabling direct comparison of a low-cost and a high-efficiency tandem. Lastly parametric analyses are performed to more broadly examine the bottom-cell cost-performance trade-off. We show that low-cost silicon, even at the detriment of efficiency, is the more likely path to make perovskite-silicon tandems commercially viable and enable future reductions in LCOE, given both current and near-future silicon technology. We lay out a clear economic motivation for pursuing low-cost silicon bottom cells in perovskite-silicon tandems, showing that they can achieve a 15–20% relative LCOE reduction compared to the single-junction sub-cells. This is a 2–3 times greater relative LCOE reduction compared with using high-efficiency silicon. Furthermore, we show that the advantage of using low-cost silicon bottom cells is robust to and benefits from expected market trends, such as falling system costs and advanced, low-cost manufacturing. This work provides a clear pathway to cost-effective tandems, outlines the benefits for existing multicrystalline silicon manufacturers to investing in tandem development, and points out a clear mismatch between commercial viability and current research efforts. |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T11:55:24Z |
| format | Article |
| id | mit-1721.1/123800 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T11:55:24Z |
| publishDate | 2020 |
| publisher | Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/1238002022-10-01T07:00:03Z Roadmap for cost-effective, commercially-viable perovskite silicon tandems for the current and future PV market Sofia, Sarah Elizabeth Wang, Hao Bruno, Annalisa Cruz-Campa, Jose Luis Buonassisi, Anthony Peters, Ian Marius Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Chemical Engineering A techno-economic analysis of perovskite-silicon tandem solar modules is presented, outlining the most viable pathway for designing cost-effective, commercially viable tandems. We explore the cost-performance trade-off for silicon bottom cells in perovskite-silicon tandems, and evaluate the potential of using low-cost, lower-efficiency silicon bottom cells, on the basis of levelized cost of electricity (LCOE), compared to the higher-efficiency, higher-cost bottom cells that have been the primary focus of most perovskite-silicon tandem research efforts. We fabricate a cost-effective four-terminal silicon-perovskite tandem using a low-cost multicrystalline bottom cell and calculate the device LCOE. We then extend this analysis by modeling performance and LCOE of similar tandems instead using high-efficiency silicon bottom cells, enabling direct comparison of a low-cost and a high-efficiency tandem. Lastly parametric analyses are performed to more broadly examine the bottom-cell cost-performance trade-off. We show that low-cost silicon, even at the detriment of efficiency, is the more likely path to make perovskite-silicon tandems commercially viable and enable future reductions in LCOE, given both current and near-future silicon technology. We lay out a clear economic motivation for pursuing low-cost silicon bottom cells in perovskite-silicon tandems, showing that they can achieve a 15–20% relative LCOE reduction compared to the single-junction sub-cells. This is a 2–3 times greater relative LCOE reduction compared with using high-efficiency silicon. Furthermore, we show that the advantage of using low-cost silicon bottom cells is robust to and benefits from expected market trends, such as falling system costs and advanced, low-cost manufacturing. This work provides a clear pathway to cost-effective tandems, outlines the benefits for existing multicrystalline silicon manufacturers to investing in tandem development, and points out a clear mismatch between commercial viability and current research efforts. 2020-02-13T16:14:19Z 2020-02-13T16:14:19Z 2019-12 2019-07 Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle 2398-4902 https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/123800 Sofia, Sarah E. et al. "Roadmap for cost-effective, commercially-viable perovskite silicon tandems for the current and future PV market." Sustainable Energy & Fuels 4 (February 2020): 852-862 © 2020 Royal Society of Chemistry http://dx.doi.org/10.1039/c9se00948e Sustainable Energy & Fuels Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial 3.0 unported license https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/ application/pdf Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) |
| spellingShingle | Sofia, Sarah Elizabeth Wang, Hao Bruno, Annalisa Cruz-Campa, Jose Luis Buonassisi, Anthony Peters, Ian Marius Roadmap for cost-effective, commercially-viable perovskite silicon tandems for the current and future PV market |
| title | Roadmap for cost-effective, commercially-viable perovskite silicon tandems for the current and future PV market |
| title_full | Roadmap for cost-effective, commercially-viable perovskite silicon tandems for the current and future PV market |
| title_fullStr | Roadmap for cost-effective, commercially-viable perovskite silicon tandems for the current and future PV market |
| title_full_unstemmed | Roadmap for cost-effective, commercially-viable perovskite silicon tandems for the current and future PV market |
| title_short | Roadmap for cost-effective, commercially-viable perovskite silicon tandems for the current and future PV market |
| title_sort | roadmap for cost effective commercially viable perovskite silicon tandems for the current and future pv market |
| url | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/123800 |
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