In the recent years, the future of solar power has become increasingly promising, thanks to the decrease in cost of silicon solar panels and the global initiative for clean energy sources in worry of climate change. According to data from the International Energy Agency conceiving the most optimistic scenario for the power source, solar generation will increase 16-fold in the period between 2016 and 2040.
But now, new researches about the class of materials known as perovskites is underway in U.S. government labs and other facilities worldwide, and it promises to accelerate rapidly even the most optimistic predictions for solar deployment. If these perovskites showed success at the lab and were delayed to commercial use they could dramatically change the market of the renewable energy sources giving potential for panels to capture energy virtually any surface facing the sun.
“The future of perovskites is breathtaking,” said Varun Sivaram, fellow of the Council for Foreign Relations and author of the book “Taming the Sun” which is about the future of solar power. “For solar to really anchor a clean energy transition we’re going to need technological innovation and perovskite is the frontrunner in my mind.”
Perovskites being a potential game changer and a superior alternative to conventional solar cells is pretty easy to understand, you don’t need much physics or engineering knowledge. Because perovskite are flexible and easy to produce, they can be painted or sprayed on surfaces from an ink solution and be printed like newspapers. This flexibility means they can be attached to almost anywhere, turning any surface to a solar panel.
During their visit to the National Renewable Energy Lab in Golden, Colo., Joseph Berry and David Moore who are two researchers in the field explained the projects and researches that are ongoing to move perovskites forward from the lab to the commercial market.
To show how easily the cells may be applied, Moore lifts a small surface with visible perovskite solar cells he painted himself using a brush. Berry pointed out to one experiment where perovskite cells where held under bright light so as to test its durability. Moore also held a light to a solar cell that dimmed in response to that light, explaining potential protection against sunlight.
“The materials have the right properties that make them good at this,” said Berry.
Researches also think that perovskites are a more efficient material to catch the suns energy. Conventional silicon solar panels, which are the primary type used today on rooftops and in utility-scale power plants alike, tend to achieve 20% efficiency, meaning that it only captures a fifth of the light that passes through it and turn only the fifth into electricity. While a perovskite solar cell reached 22.7% efficiency past summer and researchers think that that number is likely to rise with continuous research. Theoretically perovskites can capture up to 40% of the sunlight in terms of efficiency, and because perovskites are so thin they may be applied to silicon modules that have already been built, boosting electricity production.
In the past, different solar technologies have offered either flexibility or efficiency, and scientists struggled to combine the two with perovskites. “Perovskites shatter that trade off and promise to do better on literally every performance characteristic,” said Sivaram the fellow of the Council for Foreign Relations and author of the book “Taming the Sun” which is about the future of solar power.
However, challenges still remain to exist. The lifespan of perovskites is largely unknown while the lifespan of silicon solar panel have been proven to be durable through decades of research. And since climate change demands us fast decisions the world can’t wait 30 years to know about the lifespan of perovskites. “Four years ago, you could make it for maybe a day,” said Berry. “Now we’re out to 5,000 hours.”
Also, the perovskites technology – like other technologies that’s under development in federally funded labs – faces challenges from and administration that undermines the renewable energy sources to saving coal and fossil fuel production. The Trump administration proposed 2018 budget would have cut funding to the Department of Energy’s renewable energy office by more than 70%, the same office that provides the greater portion of National Renewable Energy Lab’s $293 million budget.
The budget cut was rejected by Congress, which surprisingly increased the renewable officee’s budget. Even members of the Trump Administration have praised the National Renewable Energy Lab and the Department of Energy’s other national energy labs. Energy Secretary Rick Perry describes himself as a “cheerleader” of the labs. And in an appearance at an American Council on Renewable Energy conference earlier this year Undersecretary of Energy Mark Menzes motioned perovskites and praised while striving to defend the proposed budget cuts.
“It’s an extraordinary thing what our labs are capable of doing,” he said after mentioning a story about National Renewable Energy Lab’s perovskites research. “We’re able to take early stage research to be able to develop the technologies to make it apply.”
But in the end, perovskites might not be a solution that transforms solar energy because they face many challenges, from outdoor weather conditions to entering the crowded market. However, clean energy experts say that the federal government has to continue investing in different technologies even when they are not certain that one of them will show success.
“Our global competitors are drastically increasing their R&D funding for these technologies,” says Timothy Olson, Policy and Research Manager at ACORE. “We don’t want the U.S. to fall behind.”
