New technique to produce cheaper solar energy

Researchers, including those of Indian-origin, have pinpointed a new technique that could pave the way for solar energy to be converted into household electricity more cheaply than ever before.
Researchers from the University of Exeter, UK, have examined new techniques for generating photovoltaic (PV) energy - or ways in which to convert light into power - more cost efficiently.
Current, widely-used commercial methods employed to generate PV energy, such as using silicon or thin film based technologies, are still expensive as they are processed through vacuum-based techniques.
The development of technologies and the invention of new materials could lead to the reduction of PV energy generation costs.

The team of scientists from the Environment and Sustainability Institute (ESI), based at Exeter's Penryn Campus in Cornwall, found that one such material, a mineral called perovskite, could hold the key to cheaper PV energy generation.
The team conducted studies with perovskite in Alta Floresta (Brazil), Frenchman Flat, (US), Granada (Spain), Beijing (China), Edinburgh (UK) and Solar Village (Saudi Arabia), and confirmed its efficiency in converting light to power in a range of atmospheric conditions, rather than just under direct sunlight.

"This research offers the potential for significant progress to be made in finding cheaper ways to generate PV energy," said Professor Tapas Mallick, who was involved in the research.

"The results, which show how perovskite devices work under real operating conditions, will lead to our understanding them better, which will benefit industrial-scale production processes," Mallick said.
"The research is questioning the perovskite material's ability to produce stable solar cells under versatile climatic conditions," said Dr Senthilarasu Sundaram, from the ESI.
"The obtained results are very crucial in terms of perovskite solar cell growth and understanding how to make better devices," Sundaram said.
The study is published in the journal Solar Energy Materials & Solar Cells.