Researchers from the world’s largest solar panel manufacturer, Longi, have set a new efficiency world record for converting sunlight into electricity. The company achieved a 34.6 per cent power conversion efficiency using a tandem perovskite-silicon solar cell, beating the previous record by 0.7 per cent. This is a huge boost for renewable energy and shows that next-generation tandem cells are capable of better harnessing the Sun’s energy.
The new record is also more than 7 per cent more efficient than the record for a standard silicon solar cell, which is found in most commercial solar panels. Perovskite has been hailed as a ‘miracle material’ for its potential to vastly improve everything from batteries to telecommunications and renewable energy. With current silicon solar panels reaching their physical limits, researchers are now looking to next-generation tandem cells to better harness the Sun’s energy. Perovskite-silicon cells have a theoretical efficiency limit of 43 per cent – far exceeding the 29 per cent limit of standard silicon cells.
Longi has broken the world record for solar cell efficiency 16 times over the past three years, and this latest record was announced at the 17th International Solar Photovoltaic and Smart Energy Conference (SNEC) in Shanghai, China. The company said it achieved the new record by optimizing the thin film deposition process of the electron transport layer, developing and using high-efficiency defect passivation materials, and designing high-quality interfacial passivation structures. No further details were given about how this was accomplished. However, Longi is one of several companies currently in the process of commercializing this technology. In fact, Oxford PV in UK hopes to fulfill its first customer orders for its perovskite-based solar cells this year after establishing a production facility in Germany