Hailed as the next generation of photovoltaic material, it is hoped that perovskite solar cells will drive adoption in new applications. While there are challenges to be overcome, perovskites offer several new opportunities for partnerships with universities ahead of a likely commercial deployment between 2019 and 2021, according to market analyst firm Lux Research in its report 'The Rise of Perovskites: Identifying the Best Academic Partners to Work With' (part of the Lux Research Solar Intelligence service).
The diverse compound materials have seen dramatic achievements in solar energy conversion efficiency in academic labs: from a mere 3.8%, the cells have risen rapidly to a record 21.0%, compared with 21.7% for competing copper indium gallium diselenide (CIGS) solar cells, which have been in development for decades.
"While the efficiency question has been answered, there remain issues in stability, cost, and the feasibility of real-world efficiencies that must be addressed before commercialization can occur," says Lux Research associate Tyler Ogden (lead author of the report). "Still, demonstration of their potential for high performance by academic labs has caused research groups to consider spinning off start-ups, meaning companies need to consider opportunities now," he adds.
Lux Research analysts evaluated the existing state of perovskite solar cells and identified opportunities for companies to partner with academia. Among their findings are the following:
Partnerships are emerging from labs. Dyesol has partnered with Michael Grtzel's lab at Switzerland's EPFL (école Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne), which achieved the record efficiency of 21.0% in December. The UK's Oxford Photovoltaic Ltd is working with Henry Snaith of Oxford University, while Poland's Saule Technologies has roots in the University of Valencia, and Front Materials has roots in the National Taiwan University. Opportunities are still available. Many leading researchers have clear partnerships, but opportunities are still present with Nam-gyu Park of South Korea's Sungkyunkwan University and Yang Yang of University of California Los Angeles (UCLA). Israel's Weizmann Institute of Science and Singapore's Nanyang Technological University are also promising developers. China is top academic publisher. China is the leading publisher on perovskite solar cells, accounting for a quarter of all academic publications, but more impactful research is coming out of Israel, Switzerland, Singapore, and the UK. China is followed by the USA and South Korea. However, European countries – the UK, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Spain, Sweden, France, Greece and Belgium - together account for 24% (almost equivalent to China).
