The Solar Technology That Could Change Everything

[00:00:00]I've been interviewing ID Tech X uh analysts for a number of years now about perovskite uh which is a mineral that gets added to solar panels to make them much more efficient. And uh Dr. Shiaoi could you tell give us an overview of your new report because it sounds like Robskite is finally being commercialized.

[00:00:23]>> Yeah. Um thank you very much for this great opportunity. In general, we have been tracking this technology and progress for quite a long time and especially from recently we see some changes. One change is we actually saw some commercial examples with increasing deployment and installations in different regions. And another very uh interesting observation is with the everinccreasing demand in the energy sector. Um people probably trying to explore new possibilities which could be enable enabled by uh new technologies including pros sky solar cells [snorts] and and also this market really show very interesting region dependent uh progress. So with some areas probably focus a bit more on technologies, others maybe closer or putting more effort on the manufacturers. Um and also like as people probably uh already know there are very different approaches including the single junction the tandem solar cells uh and also sometimes people may uh taking form factor or say the substrate flexibility into consideration as well. So this is a generally some of the changes we have observed. Now >> now for those folks who have aren't familiar with perovsky could you give us just a brief introduction to what perovskide is and how it works in the solar panel.

[00:01:55]>> Yeah sure. So proskite is a kind of a material and it's a a organo inorganic combination and it was discovered uh in early times um with a special structure of ABX3.

[00:02:12]uh any material fall into the same structure would be called pro sky and then they started their use as solar cell um until like early times when people observe the initial uh efficiency around like 3.8% and over uh like a decade and two decades people just see the potential that their efficiency improve significantly. So they consider that would potentially be a really good replacement or complimentary for the silicon solar cells. So people started to put more attention into this material.

[00:02:48]>> My understanding uh is that u the average capacity which I guess would be the percentage of the energy that comes from the sun hits the solar panel and then is converted into electricity is generally around 20 or 22%. uh but with perovsky it can be theoretical limits are around 36% 39%. Have I got that correct?

[00:03:12]>> Uh basically the number may varies depending on whether we are talking single junction or tandem. So single junction theoretic limit of course that also depend on your calculation could be uh around like 30%. uh but now most of the module especially when we are talking about relatively large scale probably number should even drop a little bit depending on who provide could range from like a 14% to a 19% in general for real application and when we are talking about tandem this number can actually be higher than the theoretic number >> well let's get into the tandem solar cell because I understand that that's leading the race to commercialized.

[00:03:58]Could you explain what a tandem cell is?

[00:04:01]The perovskite and silicone.

[00:04:03]>> Yeah, just to make it simple, uh, usually we have single junction which is only based like a one kind of a material layer for the um solar light absorption.

[00:04:16]But in this case, you probably can simply understood as two different layers or even more layers. So they can observe some of the sunlight spectrum leaving other parts to be observed by different material. So you're targeting different wavelengths >> [snorts] >> uh spectrum range and and that can actually boost your efficiency. If I just simplify the whole picture for the explanation.

[00:04:42]>> And is it fair to say then that the combination of perovsky and silicone in a tandem cell u gets us up around the high 20% capacity? Is that where where uh is that achievable?

[00:04:59]>> If we talk about efficiency that can be even higher. It could be higher than 30%.

[00:05:06]And what does that do to the economics of a solar panel if you're getting that much more electricity from the same panel?

[00:05:15]>> Yeah. So in some regions, for instance, when the real estimate, for instance, on the rooftop, you don't really have enough space for solar cells. A very good way is to boost the efficiency. And also in some regions like the installation fee actually uh play a more important role than the module price itself. So that means the human labor is more expensive and that means if you can increase the efficiency that can actually decrease the potential cost of the solar cell. So that make a lot of sense.

[00:05:52]So um my understanding is that the manufact commercial manufacturing is beginning and there are many companies that are doing this and is probably the manufacturing their skill at and efficiency at manufacturing that will bring down costs uh increase the market and then we'll see who the market winners are. Is that a fair way to describe that? Yeah, I would say a very important new observation I have seen recently is uh really related to manufacturing because uh quite a lot of records we save for instance from ENRA uh typically lots of them are based on the lab scale like very small size of the uh module but like when we come to real application and when you increase the size of the module usually efficiency will drop. So any players who are able to manufacture that with a high yield and reliability actually has a better possibility to win in this game.

[00:06:55]Say >> what is the single biggest obstacle to perovskite uh gaining a foothold in the solar cell manufacturing industry? Um I would say for instance people started to uh fix a kind of a recipe and also they gradually increase the yield and then demonstrated the mass manufacturing capability also with some successful installation examples that just show people it works.

[00:07:27]Of course um what I talk about is there are single junction applications as well as tandem trials um and there are also flexible um module efforts um they are all at different stages but it just show people some like more hope more possibility this could potentially work. Can you look out into the future maybe the next year or two maybe even five and what do you expect to happen in this you know with perovskite in the solar cell industry?

[00:08:00]>> Yeah. So I think first of all silicon is still taking a very dominant position but now especially single crystalalline silicon. So basically my understanding is for quite a lot of uh applications if a single crystal and silicon can work that may still be the first choice. U only in some situations when silicon probably wouldn't be the best option.

[00:08:28]For instance where we consider uh foam [clears throat] factor flexibility and also the sunlight angle uh a number of all different things. Then people started to show more prokide like niche applications in different areas and they should have very special target and that may receive more successful stories. And in the other time depending on the region people may still try single junction large deployment examples like supported by the local government for instance and then that will hopefully trying to expand the installation and then try to further decrease the potential cost and then hopefully pro sky solar cells can gain more position in their future.

[00:09:16]Is it fair to say that you know down the road after the technology has proven itself in the marketplace that we could be looking at capacity um with uh with those cells of over well over 30% is that you know like a 35 or even 40%.

[00:09:34]And so so when I talk about like a 30% or something is actually the efficiency um like when we talk about the installation uh so say the penetration I I would say in the future the actual penetration would be still at a very low number the crystal can still is a a dominant um choice. Um it it so far there is no very clear answer this technology will definitely be successful uh will grow bigger and bigger but at least we saw some initial applications and hopefully with more successful examples we will see more penetration but I don't really think like uh like some 30% penetration rate would be a [snorts] it's very very aggressive number in my opinion.

[00:10:28]>> Uh Dr. Shoshi, thank you very much for this. Really appreciate your insights.

[00:10:32]>> Yeah, thank you so much. I'm happy to share um our insights and opinions with you. Picks.