Perovskites, it seems, have been on the brink of commercialization for a couple of years. While companies working with the technology have been able to pick up plenty of investment cash – and the research sector has a seemingly endless interest in the material – industry remains wary of the technology, and with good reason.
A paper published by scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology takes a ‘techno-economic’ approach to analyzing market opportunities for perovskites. The study, Economically Sustainable Growth of Perovskite Photovoltaics Manufacturing, published in Joule, calculates an estimated $1 billion investment would be needed for perovskite modules to achieve a $0.40/W manufacturing cost – a price point likely to still leave perovskites struggling to compete with silicon PV.
“The largest modeled [factory] (1 GW/year) must sell for $0.72/W,” the paper states. “This value is around double the typical price currently obtained for photovoltaic modules in the grid-connected residential, commercial and utility PV markets.”