Groundbreaking new findings could lead to cheaper solar energy in a booming market.
A team of researchers looked at a new technique generating photovoltaic (PV) energy in a more cost-effective way than has ever been possible in the past, the University of Exeter reported.
Today's widely used commercial methods used to generate PV energy, such as silicon or film based technologies, are relatively expensive because they require vacuum-based techniques. The invention of new solar energy materials could help lower these costs. Scientists found a mineral called perovskite has the ability to convert light into power in a number of atmospheric conditions, as opposed to only in direct sunlight.
"This research offers the potential for significant progress to be made in finding cheaper ways to generate PV energy. The results, which show how perovskite devices work under real operating conditions, will lead to our understanding them better, which will benefit industrial-scale production processes," said Professor Tapas Mallick, who was involved in the research. "Given concern on large-scale solar farms across the country, such techniques will be key to understand how the Perovskite technology integrates within our building envelope."
The findings are especially significant because in recent years there has been a rapid growth in the PV market, especially due to efforts to control CO2 emissions.
"The research is questioning the perovskite material's ability to produce stable solar cells under versatile climatic conditions. The obtained results are very crucial in terms of perovskite solar cell growth and understanding how to make better devices," said Senthilarasu Sundaram from the Environment and Sustainability Institute (ESI).
The findings were published in a recent edition of the journal Solar Energy Materials & Solar Cells under the title "Effects of Spectral Coupling on Perovskite Solar Cells Under Diverse Climatic Conditions."
