Currently, there is a constant stream of trial commercial shipments and tandem modules have reached parity with silicon on lifetime power output – with huge room for further upgrades on lifespan and efficiency. This means that solar’s price declines and quality improvements haven’t reached a plateau – the solar levelised cost of electricity (LCOE) is going to keep improving through 2040 and beyond.
It will take many years of manufacturing expansions to catch up with the scale of the general solar industry – but specific market segments will be transformed or even created by perovskites, in particular rooftop solar.
Tandem modules, combining silicon and perovskite layers to reach both higher efficiencies and higher lifetime power output values than conventional silicon can achieve will be big in the US, with tariffs and subsidies helping the new technology to be adopted in the face of China’s ultra-cheap products. Tandems will become the dominant form of solar manufacturing worldwide in the 2030s – replacing and assimilating the silicon industry.
Single-junction perovskites bring something new to the table – a thin-film solar product that’s affordable. Where rival technologies like CIGS never attained mass adoption, single-junction perovskites promise far lower production costs which will enable them to claim stakes in satellite power, device-integrated cells, but most importantly solar installations on facades and on non-load-bearing rooftops. That will change the game for distributed solar installations across the Commercial & Industrial (C&I), municipal, and residential segments. The appeal of batteries, plus solar is only going to grow over time – even if the electricity price was not set for further increases.
The report is aimed especially at Chief Sustainability Officers or other officials in charge of adopting green power sources or those simply reducing the electricity bill through investments in distributed energy, along with anyone else involved in the solar industry, especially project developers and rooftop solar installers.
Additionally, Rethink Energy are appealing to policymakers to also read the report to understand the opportunity which perovskites offer to a solar manufacturing reshoring agenda – with inherently lower energy and investment costs making this a far easier supply chain to reshore compared to the burdensome polysilicon and wafer segments which silicon photovoltaics rely on.
The report is informed by interviews with the better part of a dozen perovskite companies whose operations are spread across the US, mainland Europe, the UK, Australia, and Canada. Rethink Energy’s coverage and forecasting of perovskites, and its contacts in the sector, go back to late 2020.
The company has also closely followed the extensive plans being laid in China, whether by mainstream giants, dedicated perovskite companies of moderate size, and the dozens of small startups looking to make thin-film products.
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