Abstract
Approaching efficiency limits for silicon photovoltaics and impressive efficiency gains for new perovskite and perovskite silicon tandem solar cells trigger the question, which technology will be the most economically attractive option in the future. With a bottom-up approach we estimate the manufacturing costs of modules based on silicon, perovskite single junction, and perovskite silicon tandem solar cells. We determine levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) based on current costs, and because the perovskite technology is not readily available yet, project as well future LCOE considering the ongoing dynamic system cost reductions. Furthermore, we use an empirical link between perovskite single junction efficiency and resulting tandem efficiency, to estimate LCOE for both technologies for a given status of the perovskite technology. We find that if the perovskite technology matures to a level within the next 5-6 years where single junction module efficiency exceed 22% and tandem device efficiency 30% using low-cost industrial scale processes, while module lifetimes are comparable to silicon, perovskite silicon tandem devices are especially promising for residential applications, while in utility installations perovskite silicon tandems and perovskite singlejunction devices promise a cost advantage over pure silicon. LCOE reductions of 10%-20% compared to pure silicon photovoltaics are possible.
Highlights
S OLAR photovoltaic technologies have achieved a dramatic price decrease, putting them on a par with fossil-based technologies and on-shore wind in terms of levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) [1]
We find that if the perovskite technology matures to a level within the 5-6 years where single junction module efficiency exceed 22% and tandem device efficiency 30% using low-cost industrial scale processes, while module lifetimes are comparable to silicon, perovskite silicon tandem devices are especially promising for
Because the larger part of overall system costs scales with module area, increasing efficiency is a strong leverage for lower LCOE
Summary
S OLAR photovoltaic technologies have achieved a dramatic price decrease, putting them on a par with fossil-based technologies and on-shore wind in terms of levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) [1]. In this article, we use a bottom-up model to estimate the manufacturing cost for a module based on perovskite solar cells and compare the LCOE for silicon and perovskite technologies in single junction and two-terminal tandem configurations. In the context of perovskite silicon tandem modules, only the additional costs need to be considered for the top cell deposition, as the module manufacturing is necessary for a silicon single junction module as well Based on this comparison, we choose the cost range for the manufacturing of a perovskite module for the following analysis to be 19.8–38.8 $/m2. For the additional costs for the top cell we calculated 3.7 – 9.4 $/m2 based on our own data
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