Numerical modelling of an effective perovskite solar cell and PV-module for comparison analysis of organic and inorganic electron transport layers

Abstract

The demand for energy has increased over the past few decades due to both the industrial sector's rapid development and the world's population growth. As we know, the main source of energy consists primarily of fossil fuels, which are expected to be exhausted very soon. Researchers were therefore urged to locate an alternative source of energy that may substitute for fossil fuels in order to meet the world's growing energy needs. Substitute energy sources, like renewable energy, can be used to reduce reliance on conventional energy. As its irradiance may produce electricity when struck by photovoltaic solar (PV) panels, one of the increasingly prevalent types of energy is solar energy. With the help of capacitance simulator software for solar cells (SCAPS-1D), a thorough study of comparison analysis for the design of more efficient, inexpensive, and non-toxic Ni/Cu2O/MASnI3/PCBM/FTO and Ni/Cu2O/MASnI3/WO3/FTO module configurations of solar cells was carried out, and the PVsyst photovoltaic software package investigated the dependence of solar panels on temperature and irradiation. In order to investigate how altering the electron transport layer (ETL) affects conversion efficiency, this work offers a perovskite solar cell simulation with both organic and inorganic ETLs. The absorber layer of perovskite and the HTL (hole transport layer) are maintained uniformly across all ETL configurations. This particular research takes into account the CH3NH3SnI3 absorber layer with Cu2O as HTL. In order to determine which cell combination has the maximum conversion efficiency, we examine the outcomes of both cell combinations. The SCAPS-1D software is used for all simulation work. The power conversion efficiency (PCE) for organic ETL was found to be 28.79%., in addition to a number of electrical parameters like short-circuit current density (Jsc) of 33.42 mA/cm2, open-circuit voltage (Voc) of 1.032 V, and fill factor (FF) of 83.43%. For inorganic ETL, PCE was 29.54%, Jsc was 34.28 mA/cm2, Voc was 1.033, and fill factor was 83.34%. The optimised layer thickness of HTL was 0.2 µm, for ETL it was 0.02 µm, and the CH3NH3SnI3 absorber layer was 0.8 µm. For a solar module with 72 cells with dimensions of 2.2×1.1 m, the results obtained from the simulation of electrical parameters derived from SCAPS-1D were configured in the PVsyst software package for panel performance.