Scientists make major breakthrough while testing new solar technology outdoors — here's what this means for the future of energy
Solar panels play a major role in helping us achieve our sustainability goals by harnessing the sun's abundant energy and converting it into clean electricity.
Perovskite-based photovoltaic cells have shown great promise for increased efficiency and lower costs over traditional silicon versions, but they tend to suffer from long-term stability issues. There's also been a lack of comprehensive outdoor testing to prove their viability in the real world — until now.
Researchers from Belgium's Interuniversity Microelectronics Centre and the University of Cyprus have announced the completion of two-year outdoor stability tests involving perovskite solar mini-modules that they developed, as PV Magazine reported, and the results are promising.
"The most durable mini-module maintained 78% of its initial efficiency after one year," the researchers shared in the report. There was a nominal drop of 7-8% efficiency during the initial burn-in period, but it soon leveled out.
Stress factors that tend to affect these solar panels include moisture, UV light exposure, and temperature, but according to the study, much of the previous testing had been done in controlled indoor environments.
There's also a phenomenon involving diurnal and nighttime changes, wherein there's been degradation during daylight hours but also overnight recovery of solar modules.
The research team included these factors into their equation, along with a focus on the evolution of key electrical parameters and the performance of entire modules instead of just individual cells. The report says that these elements were overlooked by other studies.
"The results have also been disseminated and discussed at conferences and with our partners in different projects, which comprise both academia and industry. There is high interest since the data sets are some of the most extensive ones currently available for outdoor testing of perovskite modules," Tom Aernouts, research and development manager at IMEC, Hasselt University, and EnergyVille, said.
The information they gathered was also used to develop a data-driven predictive model to gauge power output by using the eXtreme Gradient Boosting regression technique, as the report noted. It used the normalized root mean square error to gauge how well the model matches observed data.
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"Our predictive model, focusing on essential environmental parameters, accurately forecasted the power output of mini-modules with a 6.76% nRMSE, indicating its potential to predict the lifetime of perovskite-based devices," the researchers wrote.
Developing more affordable, efficient, and resilient photovoltaic modules could help supercharge the solar industry as well as consumer adoption. Plus, a detailed understanding of the long-term operational capabilities of perovskite models will only bolster further study, helping the energy industry transition away from dirty fuels and invest in greener technologies.
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