This perovskite substrate is a radical departure from silicon solar cells. It's caught up to the max efficiency of silicon based cells in a short period of time and is reportedly easier and less energy intensive to manufacture. The only hitch I've come across are stability issues, which might lead to an early wear out date, but they don't seem insurmountable or even that difficult from what I can understand of it. They're already largely solved if I'm what I'm reading is what I think I'm reading. These will reportedly be commercially available as early as next year.
Major advance in solar cells made from cheap, easy-to-use perovskite | Berkeley News
Quote:
Solar cells made from an inexpensive and increasingly popular material called perovskite can more efficiently turn sunlight into electricity using a new technique to sandwich two types of perovskite into a single photovoltaic cell.
|
The wiki -
Perovskite solar cell - Wikipedia
Lots of google materials if you're interested.