Revo­lu­tion­iz­ing Sol­ar Energy: EU’s PEARL Pro­ject Tar­gets Next-Gen Flex­ible Per­ovskite Sol­ar Cells

Cur­rent per­ovskite sol­ar cells face sig­ni­fic­ant chal­lenges in sta­bil­ity and dur­ab­il­ity, hinder­ing their long-term applic­a­tion. To address these issues, the European Uni­on has launched the innov­at­ive PEARL pro­ject, which aims to enhance per­ovskite sol­ar cells with cut­ting-edge car­bon elec­trodes. This EU-fun­ded ini­ti­at­ive aspires to sig­ni­fic­antly improve the effi­ciency, sta­bil­ity, and cost-effect­ive­ness of these sol­ar cells, tar­get­ing effi­cien­cies of over 25% and sub­stan­tially lower pro­duc­tion costs. PEARL rep­res­ents a major step for­ward in mak­ing sus­tain­able sol­ar power more access­ible and reliable.

The use of sol­ar energy is essen­tial for achiev­ing glob­al cli­mate goals. Cur­rently, sil­ic­on-based sol­ar cells is still the dom­in­ant tech­no­logy. Research of per­ovskite sol­ar cells has been pro­gressed rap­idly over the past 15 years. This inex­pens­ive and ver­sat­ile mater­i­al and its func­tion­al­ity can con­trib­ute to an enorm­ous increase in the effi­ciency of sol­ar cells. The increase in effi­ciency from an ini­tial 4% to well over 20% prom­ises a break­through for the tech­no­logy in the near future.

How­ever, the new sol­ar cells are cur­rently still too unstable and not robust enough. The effi­ciency loss of per­ovskite cells is cur­rently still high with­in the first few months. Research teams around the world are there­fore work­ing on over­com­ing the chal­lenges of the tech­no­logy and on envir­on­ment­ally friendly pro­cess tech­no­lo­gies for its pro­duc­tion.

The European Uni­on has launched an ambi­tious new pro­ject ​“PEARL – Flex­ible Per­ovskite Sol­ar Cells with Car­bon Elec­trodes”, focus­ing on the advance­ment of per­ovskite sol­ar cell tech­no­logy. The pro­ject aims to achieve ground­break­ing improve­ments in sol­ar energy tech­no­logy by incor­por­at­ing car­bon elec­trodes into per­ovskite sol­ar cell archi­tec­ture. This enhance­ment is expec­ted to lead to reduced mater­i­al costs, increased device sta­bil­ity, sim­pli­fied fab­ric­a­tion pro­cesses, and sig­ni­fic­antly lower emissions.

The ten European part­ners of the pro­ject con­sor­ti­um are work­ing on PEARL’s primary object­ive, which is to devel­op flex­ible per­ovskite sol­ar cells using scal­able, envir­on­ment­ally friendly meth­ods that are viable for indus­tri­al applic­a­tion. The pro­ject tar­gets achiev­ing long-term oper­a­tion­al sta­bil­ity that sur­passes exist­ing Inter­na­tion­al Elec­tro­tech­nic­al Com­mis­sion (IEC) stand­ards, with an effi­ciency great­er than 25%, pro­duc­tion costs below 0.3 EUR/​Wp, and min­im­al emis­sions of less than 0.01 kg CO2eq/​kWh.

The pro­ject is set to explore planar, con­ven­tion­al n‑i-p, and fur­ther n‑i-c device archi­tec­tures. These will util­ize low-tem­per­at­ure car­bon pastes as top elec­trodes and will be pro­duced in roll-to-roll tech­no­logy. Key applic­a­tions of this tech­no­logy will be in the emer­ging mar­kets of build­ing and vehicle integ­rated photo­vol­ta­ics, and Inter­net of Things.

Reflect­ing on the pro­ject’s sig­ni­fic­ance, the PEARL pro­ject coordin­at­or Dr. Riikka Suhon­en from VTT Tech­nic­al Research Centre of Fin­land Ltd stated: ​“With PEARL, we are not just devel­op­ing a new tech­no­logy; we are set­ting the found­a­tion for the next gen­er­a­tion of sol­ar power. Our innov­at­ive approach with car­bon elec­trodes will not only enhance the effi­ciency and sta­bil­ity of per­ovskite sol­ar cells but will also ensure that these bene­fits are access­ible and sus­tain­able on a glob­al scale.“

PEARL is a sig­ni­fic­ant step towards a more sus­tain­able and cost-effect­ive sol­ar power future, prom­ising to make sub­stan­tial con­tri­bu­tions to glob­al renew­able energy capabilities.

About PEARL – Flex­ible Per­ovskite Sol­ar Cells with Car­bon Electrodes

The pro­ject PEARL has star­ted on 1^st Octo­ber 2023 and will run 36 months. The pro­ject receives fund­ing from the European Union’s Hori­zon Europe research and innov­a­tion pro­gramme under grant agree­ment no. 101122283.

PEARL con­sor­ti­um con­sists of 10 European part­ners, includ­ing research organ­iz­a­tions, uni­ver­sit­ies and private companies:

• Tekno­lo­gi­an Tutkimus­keskus VTT Oy (Coordin­at­or)
• Neder­landse Organ­isa­tie voor Toege­past Natuur­wetenschap­pelijk Onderzoek TNO
• Helm­holtz-Zen­trum für Mater­i­ali­en und Ener­gie GmbH
• Uni­versita degli Studi di Roma Tor Vergata
• Dycotec Mater­i­als LTD
• Fraunhofer Insti­tute for Elec­tron Beam and Plasma Tech­no­logy FEP
• Fach­hoch­schule Nordwestschweiz
• Saule Spółka Akcyjna
• Insti­tute of Chem­ic­al Research of Cata­lonia (ICIQ-CERCA)
• eni S.p.A.

For more inform­a­tion, please vis­it the project’s web­site: www​.pearl​-pro​ject​.eu