Dear Qamar,
The perovskite solar cells are cheaper than the silicon solar cells. It is estimated that it will cost only from 10-20 cent for one peak watt while silicon solar cells cost 75 cent per peak watt. This is because the perovskite solar cells use inexpensive materials and low temperature processing to produce them.
They are processed at low temperature as low as 100 degree centigrade while silicon uses high temperature as high as 900 degree centigrade.
The major disadvantage is that perovskite solar cells are sensitive against moisture and therefore they require hermetic sealing.
Please refer to the essay in the link: https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2019/02/first-commercial-perovskite-solar-late-in-2019-and-the-road-to-moving-the-energy-needle.html
Best wishes
Dear Qamar,
The perovskite solar cells are cheaper than the silicon solar cells. It is estimated that it will cost only from 10-20 cent for one peak watt while silicon solar cells cost 75 cent per peak watt. This is because the perovskite solar cells use inexpensive materials and low temperature processing to produce them.
They are processed at low temperature as low as 100 degree centigrade while silicon uses high temperature as high as 900 degree centigrade.
The major disadvantage is that perovskite solar cells are sensitive against moisture and therefore they require hermetic sealing.
Please refer to the essay in the link: https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2019/02/first-commercial-perovskite-solar-late-in-2019-and-the-road-to-moving-the-energy-needle.html
Best wishes
Many thanks sir. Actually I found that these FTOs or ITOs which are quite expensive and contribute to most of the prices for these PSCs. Additionally, the perovskite precursors PbI2 and CH3NH3I are also very expensive. As the PSCs technology is in pre- mature stage, it would be difficult to say something about it now.
Well, the recent prices for Si solar cells are much lower than mentioned by Abdelhalim Zekry. According to pvinsights.com, the cell price is below 0.2 US-$ / Wp and, depending on the base material and the type of cell, might be even significantly lower than that. Even the highest module price is below 0.4 US-$ / Wp, also with a large variation towards lower values. On the site www.pvxchange.com/en/news/price-index, module prices are given in Euro/Wp, ranging between 0.39 for bifacial and 0.26 for mainstream modules in February 2020.
And this information is not new: In the learning curve of silicon photovoltaics (cf. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swanson's_law), this price level was reached already several years ago. For a comparison with the learning curve of thin film technologies, have a look at page 45 of the Fraunhofer ISE PV Report (www.ise.fraunhofer.de/en/publications/studies/photovoltaics-report.html), displaying similar prices and a similar trend; the main difference just being the total amount of global installations. Thus, the race is still open.
However, since the most advanced Si technology comes already close to the intrinsic efficiency limit, present research for advance development seeks to overcome this limit by going to tandem architectures. A prominent example is the recent record efficiency reached by a team from the HZB (Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin): "World Record: Efficiency of perovskite silicon tandem solar cell jumps to 29.15 %" (www.helmholtz-berlin.de/pubbin/news_seite?nid=21020;sprache=en;seitenid=1). So, not just the race itself is open, also its direction is.
Nice article, Nasir Ali ; let me just cite the past paragraph:
"Kamat says that to produce power for decades in the field, all-perovskite tandems will need to match silicon’s robustness, and they still have a long way to go. But because all-perovskite tandems are expected to be far cheaper to produce than silicon-perovskite tandems or silicon cells alone, it’s a safe bet that scientists will do everything they can to prove their worth."
So, to answer the starting question of Qamar Wali : At current stage, perovskite solar cells are more expensive than silicon cells. But the race is still open, it seems...
Although silicon is the second most abundant element in the earth's crust, silicon-based solar cells are much more expensive than perovskites. The reason is that Si is an indirect semiconductor, so it is considered as poor absorber, and in case of Si-based solar cell, a thick and rigid Si absorber layer for absorbing photons is required. In addition, the difficulty of harvesting and the type and quantity of processing required are other important parameters that increase the cost of any material. Because in the silicon manufacturing process, sand is first converted into high-purity silica, and then the silica is further refined before the chemical reaction of polymerizing it. All these steps involve expensive components and result in higher absorber Si costs, which in turn increases the overall cost of Si-based solar cells.
Best wishes
Usman Ali Shah
Well, Usman Ali Shah -- just have a look at the only relevant scale for deciding whether some technology is expensive or not: How much does it cost to obtain 1 Wp (Watt-peak) of electrical output in the end? For solar cells based on crystalline silicon (c-Si), this is already well below 0.30 US-$; at least this was the 2015 price (cf. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Growth_of_photovoltaics#/media/File:Price_history_of_silicon_PV_cells_since_1977.svg). And in the Photovoltaics Report of Fraunhofer ISE (cf. www.ise.fraunhofer.de/en/publications/studies/photovoltaics-report.html) you find that the 2019 c-Si module prices approach already 0.20 €/Wp, while at the same time, all thin-film technologies were still at 0.30 €/Wp.
Now, since you claim that "silicon-based solar cells are much more expensive than perovskites", please come up with the corresponding price per Watt-peak for perovskites!
Respected Sir Jan-Martin Wagner, yesterday I updated my answer on Researchgate, but I regret to say that it has not been updated yet, and I don’t know why...? But let me be clear what I mean...! As we all know, perovskite-based solar cells have not yet been commercialized... Therefore, it is not yet possible to predict the cost of their cells compared with Si-based solar cells. Since the perovskite solar cell still needs to solve its stability and toxicity problems before being put into practical applications, an additional protective layer may be needed for this, which will greatly increase the cost of the perovskite solar cell. However, if we compare the synthesis process of these two types of solar cells (this is the only standard we can compare so far), it seems likely that perovskite-based devices are inexpensive. The reasons are that perovskites component can be deposited by facile low-temperature processes and also by using cheaper and abundantly available constituent materials. Thus, my claim was solely based on the aforementioned reasons.
In addition, based on the evaluation of solar modules in the links below, the authors do claim that the cost of perovskite modules is lower compared to other photovoltaic technologies including Si.
1. Cost-Performance Analysis of Perovskite Solar Modules
- DOI:
- 10.1002/advs.201600269
2. Cost Analysis of Perovskite Tandem Photovoltaics
Article Cost Analysis of Perovskite Tandem Photovoltaics
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