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Description
Halide perovskites are a family of materials that have shown potential for high performance and low production costs in solar cells. Perovskite solar cells have shown remarkable progress in recent years with rapid increases in efficiency, from reports of about 3% in 2009 to over 25% today (source: energy.gov). While perovskite solar cells have become highly efficient in a very short time, a number of challenges remain before they can become a competitive commercial technology. These include stability and durability, power conversion efficiency, manufacturability, technology validation and bankability.
Brite Hellas has developed a material and production process for the production of perovskite solar cells, which appears to solve issues related to the robustness and performance of the technology, as well as the manufacturability and cost effectiveness. The process has been validated at the lab and on small scale samples of 20cm x 20cm. Through this project, Brite intends to test and validate the technology at a production scale, with samples of 50cm x 50cm and 1m x 1m, and to bring the technology to TRL8 from TRL5, ready to be commercialised.
The project will result in 2 new jobs created by 2024, as well as 4 new Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) applications submitted. The project will also contribute to the increase of the profitability and competitiveness of the company, through an increase of its revenues and net profit.
Summary of project results
Halide perovskites are a family of materials that have shown potential for high performance and low production costs in solar cells. Perovskite solar cells have shown remarkable progress in recent years with rapid increases in efficiency, from reports of about 3% in 2009 to over 25% today (source: energy.gov). While perovskite solar cells have become highly efficient in a very short time, a number of challenges remain before they can become a competitive commercial technology. These include stability and durability, power conversion efficiency, manufacturability, technology validation and bankability.
Brite Hellas has developed a material and production process for the production of perovskite solar cells, which appears to solve issues related to the robustness and performance of the technology, as well as the manufacturability and cost effectiveness. The process has been validated at the lab and on small scale samples of 20cm x 20cm. Through this project, Brite intends to test and validate the technology at a production scale, with samples of 50cm x 50cm and 1m x 1m, and to bring the technology to TRL8 from TRL5, ready to be commercialised.
Through this project Brite optimised existing technology related to perovskite solar cells (PSC) and particularly related to scaling-up the glass manufacturing in order to reduce the number of connections and to facilitate the installation in building-integrated photovoltaics (BIPVs) as larger modules. Emphasis was given to test, adapt, and validate the proposed production method from lab to industrial scale and to develop a manufacturing proof of concept.
Specifically, during the project, Brite:
- Developed nanoparticle-based inks for inkjet-printing of successive and uniform photosensitive layers to the PSC construction;
- Demonstrated different shapes and substrates of glass (rigid) for PSCs exploiting inkjet-printing potential;
- Validated a series interconnection of the PSCs to a high-voltage module (50cm x 50cm);
- Validated the encapsulation of the module for protection against moisture-induced degradation; and upscaling of all the processes included in the above points;
- Validated large size PSC modules.