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This is very exciting! My understanding[1] is that silicon panels have largely hit their max efficiency, and further improvements will come from using new mater

This is very exciting! My understanding[1] is that silicon panels have largely hit their max efficiency, and further improvements will come from using new materials. Perovskite panels are the next up coming down the research pipeline, so it's very cool to hear those are moving out of the research phase and actually hitting production. I expect perovskite-based panels will have years of efficiency gains, just like silicon did, as we continue to explore even more efficient new materials. Great stuff! [1] Mostly from listening to the Skeptic's Guide podcast, which frequently covers green energy research.

nicoburns 2y ago
To me it seems hard to justify use of perovskite panels (outside of niche use cases where high-efficiency is important like space exploration) when they use so many toxic materials (and silicon panels have no such problems and are dirt cheap). Just building more silicon panels seems like a better plan.
- coldpie 2y ago
  Yeah, that's 100% a problem worth calling out and fixing. But we really do need efficiency gains in solar panels, and silicon is maxed out. Figuring out how to make perovskite more workable is absolutely worth the effort, and commercializing it is a crucial step for that.
  - coryrc 2y ago
    > But we really do need efficiency gains in solar panels why?
    - coldpie 2y ago
      Because we're already past midnight on the climate catastrophe clock, and every gain counts. If we get a 20% jump in solar panel efficiency, that means we can offline coal plants even more quickly.
      - aidenn0 2y ago
        Or we could just make 20% more of the old technology?
        coldpie 2y ago
        Both!
      - ianburrell 2y ago
        Producing more cheap panels is much better solution than waiting for more expensive, more efficient panels that aren't available now. I'm surprised someone who is concerned about catastrophe wants to wait. Solar panels are cheap enough that big installations are putting them on the ground than making mounts. There is plenty of ground. There are places where more efficient panels would be useful. With rooves, where if spending effort to mount them then might be worth using more efficient panels. Or the flexible panels might be easier to mount.
        coldpie 2y ago
        > Producing more cheap panels is much better solution than waiting for more expensive, more efficient panels that aren't available now. I'm surprised someone who is concerned about catastrophe wants to wait. Huh? Can you point out where I said we should wait?
        ianburrell 2y ago
        It was rhetorical cause you obviously don't. But you are arguing for the slower, more expensive option. Current panels are faster and cheaper. The efficiency doesn't really matter for utility solar. It is unlikely that perovskite panels will ever get cheap enough for efficiency gain to matter unless there is some breakthrough in production. Current solar panels have too much of a head start.
        coldpie 2y ago
        > But you are arguing for the slower, more expensive option No I'm not. I'm not arguing for anything. I'm excited to have more options for solar deployments! If the best option for a current time & deployment is silicon, then great! Use silicon! If perovskite does nothing more than put price pressure on silicon to get even cheaper, then that's great, too! I'm excited about green technologies :) > It is unlikely that perovskite panels will ever get cheap enough for efficiency gain to matter unless there is some breakthrough in production We'll see! We're pretty good at making improvements. Will perovskite see the same amazing price drop that silicon has? I don't know, but I'm excited to see the first step in that possible path happening.
  - blitzar 2y ago
    We still have more than enough empty roof space in suburbia to power everything for everyone and more for $0 (after installation).
    - vinceguidry 2y ago
      The real move here is to roll them out in fields mostly unusable for other purposes. These days, you can put up an entire field installation in a day or two. Getting them onto roofs requires a whole lot more effort for a whole lot less capacity.
      - euroderf 2y ago
        Furthermore you can take a shortcut by mounting them either flat on the ground (dead simple) or vertically (no worries about dust or snow) (use them as a fence). The loss of efficiency might be marginal, depending on your latitude and weather.
    - tuatoru 2y ago
      Armchair comment. Roofs are about the worst place. All the working at heights safety issues, the wide diversity of roof plans, the small size of individual roofs, the cost and difficulty of maintenance, and on and on.
  - 0cf8612b2e1e 2y ago
    Do we need efficiency gains? Like more is better, but in the US, land is cheap in many areas. A panel that is 5% better, but degrades faster might not be an economic win for a commercial power plant.
    - coldpie 2y ago
      > Do we need efficiency gains? Like more is better, but in the US, land is cheap in many areas. Yes. Anything that lets us offline coal plants faster will save lives. Assuming all else is equal, it's literally free energy. Why wouldn't you want that? What a bizarre question. > A panel that is 5% better, but degrades faster might not be an economic win for a commercial power plant. Obviously you have to multiply efficiency by longevity. If that equation didn't work out, they wouldn't be commercializing it.
      - nicoburns 2y ago
        > Yes. Anything that lets us offline coal plants faster will save lives. Assuming all else is equal, it's literally free energy. I agree with that. But all else is not equal. The more efficient panels are much more expensive than the regular panels (and there are no signs of this changing any time soon). Cheaper regular panels (and prices are still falling) are more helpful. Aside from which, panels are already cheap enough for cheap energy. It's energy storage costs (and availability of storage technology in general) that are the blocker at this point. > Obviously you have to multiply efficiency by longevity. If that equation didn't work out, they wouldn't be commercializing it. I suspect they won't be commercialised for grid-scale power plants. They'll likely be used in space, and perhaps on things like boats and RVs where space is also at a premium.
        coldpie 2y ago
        > The more efficient panels are much more expensive than the regular panels (and there are no signs of this changing any time soon). I'm pretty confident we'll be replacing silicon panels with another, more efficient tech before long. Something will bust through silicon's efficiency barrier. It may or may not be perovskite-based panels, who knows, buit I still think it's exciting to see the research & gains in this area. It's great to have more options coming online.
  - shwaj 2y ago
    This is the first I’ve heard of perovskite so I have no idea: are the cited toxicity issues fixable? Or are they inherent to the chemistry of this class of panels? How do we decide how much extra short term toxicity is acceptable? Do we do that blindly without theoretical/empirical results that demonstrate a better end state?
    - coldpie 2y ago
      I'm no expert here, either. Lead is regulated pretty carefully these days, so I have to think if this was a deal-killer, then it would've killed the deal already. This conversation has the feel to me of internet armchair commenters insisting they know more than the experts. Shrug.
      - vondur 2y ago
        That regulation is part of the reason why these panels cost more to produce. I doubt they will ever go down in price due to that.
    - nicoburns 2y ago
      My understanding is that there could in theory be perovskites that don't contain the toxic materials. But all known perovskites that are suitable for PV panels do happen to contain them.
qwertox 2y ago
Am I wrong in assuming that a 20% efficiency increase in a 25% efficient cell means 5% more energy gained (25*1.2), so a total of 30% efficiency, in relation to the 100% of solar energy which reach the cells?
- coldpie 2y ago
  Your understanding is correct, though the numbers might be off a little. I think it's more like 20% boosted to 24%.
- itishappy 2y ago
  Your understanding is not quite correct. It's 20% efficiency vs the traditional panels which max out at 20%, totaling 25%.
enslavedrobot 2y ago
As someone who worked on advanced solar in the 2008-2014 timeframe and later did a PhD in photonic materials, I have learned to heed the old adage "Never bet against silicon". The cost of silicon solar modules is projected to drop below 10cents/Watt this year and will keep dropping. The major cost of solar is now the installation and grid interconnect. Since these cells have serious problems with lifetime (years at best vs decades for silicon), all indications are that they will be much more expensive at the system level. In my opinion the major barrier to solar adoption is not efficiency but integrated operation. For instance, my roof has enough area to support a 20kW system, but the utility will only let me put up a 4kW array due because they can't accept the extra energy and stay profitable. This business model problem is not related to efficiency but the result of resistance to distributed energy strategies from utilities who can't understand how to avoid bankruptcy and move away from a centralized power plant based grid.
- applied_heat 2y ago
  Do you have suggestions for the utilities on how to move away from a centralized grid, avoiding bankruptcy and also providing the same level of reliability as the last few decades? The only supply side outage that comes to my mind is the Texas cold snap messing with the gas plants.
  - Workaccount2 2y ago
    Perhaps neighborhood level energy storage and an increase in energy transmission costs. It's very unlikely that a centralized grid will go away, society wants 100% energy availability 100% of the time. So like everything else, people are just going to have to pay for it. The same way you pay for schools even if you don't have kids or pay for roads even if you don't have a car.
  - enslavedrobot 2y ago
    It's a tough problem. Trillions of dollars of utilities bonds (mostly owned by pension funds) and a century of regulatory barriers make change hard. The problem is similar to the task of reforming the medical system. The strategy that I like is to build out distributed systems in "non-integrated areas". These are locations that are not served by the grid and often have a tiny local grid that provides high cost electricity (~1$/kWh). These areas represent test beds for distributed energy tech and might be a place where de-costing and scaling strategies could be developed. Another strategy is to wait for baby boomers to die. :)
rich_sasha 2y ago
How much does this efficiency affect levelised battery-backed electricity cost? And how much of the final price is installation, storage, land cost, maintenance and all these other overheads. My impression is that when the sun shineth, raw solar is almost too cheap to meter... But everything else costs money.

nicoburns 2y ago

To me it seems hard to justify use of perovskite panels (outside of niche use cases where high-efficiency is important like space exploration) when they use so many toxic materials (and silicon panels have no such problems and are dirt cheap). Just building more silicon panels seems like a better plan.

coldpie 2y ago
Yeah, that's 100% a problem worth calling out and fixing. But we really do need efficiency gains in solar panels, and silicon is maxed out. Figuring out how to make perovskite more workable is absolutely worth the effort, and commercializing it is a crucial step for that.
- coryrc 2y ago
  > But we really do need efficiency gains in solar panels why?
  - coldpie 2y ago
    Because we're already past midnight on the climate catastrophe clock, and every gain counts. If we get a 20% jump in solar panel efficiency, that means we can offline coal plants even more quickly.
    - aidenn0 2y ago
      Or we could just make 20% more of the old technology?
      - coldpie 2y ago
        Both!
    - ianburrell 2y ago
      Producing more cheap panels is much better solution than waiting for more expensive, more efficient panels that aren't available now. I'm surprised someone who is concerned about catastrophe wants to wait. Solar panels are cheap enough that big installations are putting them on the ground than making mounts. There is plenty of ground. There are places where more efficient panels would be useful. With rooves, where if spending effort to mount them then might be worth using more efficient panels. Or the flexible panels might be easier to mount.
      - coldpie 2y ago
        > Producing more cheap panels is much better solution than waiting for more expensive, more efficient panels that aren't available now. I'm surprised someone who is concerned about catastrophe wants to wait. Huh? Can you point out where I said we should wait?
        ianburrell 2y ago
        It was rhetorical cause you obviously don't. But you are arguing for the slower, more expensive option. Current panels are faster and cheaper. The efficiency doesn't really matter for utility solar. It is unlikely that perovskite panels will ever get cheap enough for efficiency gain to matter unless there is some breakthrough in production. Current solar panels have too much of a head start.
        coldpie 2y ago
        > But you are arguing for the slower, more expensive option No I'm not. I'm not arguing for anything. I'm excited to have more options for solar deployments! If the best option for a current time & deployment is silicon, then great! Use silicon! If perovskite does nothing more than put price pressure on silicon to get even cheaper, then that's great, too! I'm excited about green technologies :) > It is unlikely that perovskite panels will ever get cheap enough for efficiency gain to matter unless there is some breakthrough in production We'll see! We're pretty good at making improvements. Will perovskite see the same amazing price drop that silicon has? I don't know, but I'm excited to see the first step in that possible path happening.
- blitzar 2y ago
  We still have more than enough empty roof space in suburbia to power everything for everyone and more for $0 (after installation).
  - vinceguidry 2y ago
    The real move here is to roll them out in fields mostly unusable for other purposes. These days, you can put up an entire field installation in a day or two. Getting them onto roofs requires a whole lot more effort for a whole lot less capacity.
    - euroderf 2y ago
      Furthermore you can take a shortcut by mounting them either flat on the ground (dead simple) or vertically (no worries about dust or snow) (use them as a fence). The loss of efficiency might be marginal, depending on your latitude and weather.
  - tuatoru 2y ago
    Armchair comment. Roofs are about the worst place. All the working at heights safety issues, the wide diversity of roof plans, the small size of individual roofs, the cost and difficulty of maintenance, and on and on.
- 0cf8612b2e1e 2y ago
  Do we need efficiency gains? Like more is better, but in the US, land is cheap in many areas. A panel that is 5% better, but degrades faster might not be an economic win for a commercial power plant.
  - coldpie 2y ago
    > Do we need efficiency gains? Like more is better, but in the US, land is cheap in many areas. Yes. Anything that lets us offline coal plants faster will save lives. Assuming all else is equal, it's literally free energy. Why wouldn't you want that? What a bizarre question. > A panel that is 5% better, but degrades faster might not be an economic win for a commercial power plant. Obviously you have to multiply efficiency by longevity. If that equation didn't work out, they wouldn't be commercializing it.
    - nicoburns 2y ago
      > Yes. Anything that lets us offline coal plants faster will save lives. Assuming all else is equal, it's literally free energy. I agree with that. But all else is not equal. The more efficient panels are much more expensive than the regular panels (and there are no signs of this changing any time soon). Cheaper regular panels (and prices are still falling) are more helpful. Aside from which, panels are already cheap enough for cheap energy. It's energy storage costs (and availability of storage technology in general) that are the blocker at this point. > Obviously you have to multiply efficiency by longevity. If that equation didn't work out, they wouldn't be commercializing it. I suspect they won't be commercialised for grid-scale power plants. They'll likely be used in space, and perhaps on things like boats and RVs where space is also at a premium.
      - coldpie 2y ago
        > The more efficient panels are much more expensive than the regular panels (and there are no signs of this changing any time soon). I'm pretty confident we'll be replacing silicon panels with another, more efficient tech before long. Something will bust through silicon's efficiency barrier. It may or may not be perovskite-based panels, who knows, buit I still think it's exciting to see the research & gains in this area. It's great to have more options coming online.
- shwaj 2y ago
  This is the first I’ve heard of perovskite so I have no idea: are the cited toxicity issues fixable? Or are they inherent to the chemistry of this class of panels? How do we decide how much extra short term toxicity is acceptable? Do we do that blindly without theoretical/empirical results that demonstrate a better end state?
  - coldpie 2y ago
    I'm no expert here, either. Lead is regulated pretty carefully these days, so I have to think if this was a deal-killer, then it would've killed the deal already. This conversation has the feel to me of internet armchair commenters insisting they know more than the experts. Shrug.
    - vondur 2y ago
      That regulation is part of the reason why these panels cost more to produce. I doubt they will ever go down in price due to that.
  - nicoburns 2y ago
    My understanding is that there could in theory be perovskites that don't contain the toxic materials. But all known perovskites that are suitable for PV panels do happen to contain them.

qwertox 2y ago

Am I wrong in assuming that a 20% efficiency increase in a 25% efficient cell means 5% more energy gained (25*1.2), so a total of 30% efficiency, in relation to the 100% of solar energy which reach the cells?

coldpie 2y ago
Your understanding is correct, though the numbers might be off a little. I think it's more like 20% boosted to 24%.
itishappy 2y ago
Your understanding is not quite correct. It's 20% efficiency vs the traditional panels which max out at 20%, totaling 25%.

enslavedrobot 2y ago

As someone who worked on advanced solar in the 2008-2014 timeframe and later did a PhD in photonic materials, I have learned to heed the old adage "Never bet against silicon". The cost of silicon solar modules is projected to drop below 10cents/Watt this year and will keep dropping. The major cost of solar is now the installation and grid interconnect. Since these cells have serious problems with lifetime (years at best vs decades for silicon), all indications are that they will be much more expensive at the system level. In my opinion the major barrier to solar adoption is not efficiency but integrated operation. For instance, my roof has enough area to support a 20kW system, but the utility will only let me put up a 4kW array due because they can't accept the extra energy and stay profitable. This business model problem is not related to efficiency but the result of resistance to distributed energy strategies from utilities who can't understand how to avoid bankruptcy and move away from a centralized power plant based grid.

applied_heat 2y ago
Do you have suggestions for the utilities on how to move away from a centralized grid, avoiding bankruptcy and also providing the same level of reliability as the last few decades? The only supply side outage that comes to my mind is the Texas cold snap messing with the gas plants.
- Workaccount2 2y ago
  Perhaps neighborhood level energy storage and an increase in energy transmission costs. It's very unlikely that a centralized grid will go away, society wants 100% energy availability 100% of the time. So like everything else, people are just going to have to pay for it. The same way you pay for schools even if you don't have kids or pay for roads even if you don't have a car.
- enslavedrobot 2y ago
  It's a tough problem. Trillions of dollars of utilities bonds (mostly owned by pension funds) and a century of regulatory barriers make change hard. The problem is similar to the task of reforming the medical system. The strategy that I like is to build out distributed systems in "non-integrated areas". These are locations that are not served by the grid and often have a tiny local grid that provides high cost electricity (~1$/kWh). These areas represent test beds for distributed energy tech and might be a place where de-costing and scaling strategies could be developed. Another strategy is to wait for baby boomers to die. :)

rich_sasha 2y ago

How much does this efficiency affect levelised battery-backed electricity cost? And how much of the final price is installation, storage, land cost, maintenance and all these other overheads. My impression is that when the sun shineth, raw solar is almost too cheap to meter... But everything else costs money.