The effect Perovskites solar cells could have on the

cost of residential solar power systems?

Blaine Finley
MSE Capstone, Oklahoma Christian University, SP2016

I. ABSTRACT
The upfront cost of solar power is an obstacle to its
adoption on residential scales. The drop in the price of silicon
solar cells has slowed in recent years. Relatively new (to the
solar field) materials called perovskites could help reduce the
per watt cost of solar panels. The most promising way is
through boosting efficiency of silicon cells by making tandem
cells. However, even with an optimistic price reduction of
50%, panels only make up a fraction of the total installed cost
of a solar power system. Without a similar drop in price of
other components of the cost, even a significant drop in the
cost of the panels will only have a small impact on the
adoption of solar power.
II. KEYWORDS
Solar, Perovskite, Solar Power, Low Cost, Solar Cell
III. INTRODUCTION
The cost of solar power for residential systems is key to
the adoption of solar power. Prices have been falling for years
as it does for all technology. Solar power systems are expected
to continue to fall in price as technology advances and
manufacturing increases. This paper will look at one of those
technological advances that could lower the cost of solar cells
in the future, perovskites. This paper will look to answer if
this technology could have enough of an impact on the cost of
the solar cells to significantly impact the total cost of
purchasing and installing solar power systems at a residential
scale.
Traditionally solar cells are made with silicon which has
dominated the solar market. Manufacturing costs for silicon
solar cells have fallen in the recent past making helping to
spread the adoption of solar power (Green, Ho-Baillie, &
Snaith, 2014). Silicon solar cells are also nearing the
theoretical limit of efficiency, 29.4%, (Werner et al., 2016).
Without another big breakthrough in manufacturing costs it is
unlikely to see a large drop in price for silicon solar cells but
rather a continued slow fall in prices as volumes increase. In
order to Perovskites are a material that could replace or work
in tandem with the traditional silicon used in solar cells.
Perovskites are promising because of many reasons but most
important for this paper is the fact that they are a cheap
material that is easy to fabricate.
Solar cells make up only a portion of the cost of a solar
power system. The system will also have other equipment

costs as well as installation costs. In certain areas you may be

required to pay for permits and inspections to cover
governmental requirements and if the system will be
connected to the power grid there might be a connection cost
from the utility (Cost of Solar). Because of all these other
costs make up a sizable chunk of the overall cost of solar
power it seems that lowering the cost of the solar cells only
moderately might not have a significant impact.
IV. PEROVSKITES
Perovskites advancement in the solar field have come a
long way in relatively short amount of time. In 2006 Miyasaka
and co-workers reported a perovskite cells with an efficiency
of only 2.2% (as cited in Green, M. et al., 2014). At the
beginning of 2016 the highest confirmed efficiency was
21.02% (Hicks, 2016). The silicon cell record currently sits at
25.6% (Werner et al., 2016). In just a few years perovskite
cells could match or even exceed silicon cells. Also,
perovskites cells can be manufactured using low cost and
scalable processes (Wang, Wright, Elumalai, & Uddin, 2016).
When this is considered together, it is easy to see that in the
near future a perovskite panel could be produced and sold with
a similar and even better cost per watt as a silicon panel.
Perovskite cells do have drawbacks to overcome before
they can be widely adopted. Wang et al. (2016) discuss
stability problems with these cells including problems with
exposure to oxygen and moisture, UV light, and temperature.
Oxygen and moisture issues are able to be solved by
encapsulation and UV issues can be assisted by filters. There
has also been improvements to stability of the perovskite cells
themselves but their degradation is measured in days for most
and at best weeks. Wang et al. (2016) were able to produce
some cells that could stand up to humidity for their entire test
period of 20 days as seen in figure 1. However, as seen in this
example the stability comes with a cost to efficiency. Silicon
panels are usually guaranteed for 20 years with minimal losses
to efficiency. Because of this it is unlikely that perovskite
panels would be adopted widely if they had to be replaced
every few years even if they cost significantly less than silicon
panels. With the fast advancement of perovskite cells,
however, it is not hard to see the possibility of perovskite cells
that have fairly high efficiencies with acceptable stability.
However, there is a more likely way that perovskites will affect
the solar industry and with a higher probability of success.

Reaching these high levels of efficiencies is important in

lowering the cost of solar panels. While efficiencies of
traditional silicon solar panels are getting close to theoretical
limits these panels are not for sell on a residential level.
Current residential panels are usually in the low 20% and
down. By utilizing tandem cells to boost the efficiency of a
panel, the same sized panel can produce more power with
minimal increase in cost.
VI. COST OF SOLAR PANELS

Fig. 1: Graph of efficiency of perovskite cells exposed to

humidity. (Wang et al., 2016)
V. TANDEM SOLAR CELLS
Perovskites could affect the cost of solar panels is through
tandem solar cells. Tandem cells require two materials with
different bandgaps. Since silicon is already an established
material in the field most researcher focuses on using it for the
bottom cell. Silicon has a bandgap of 1.1 electron volts (eV),
therefor, the top cell requires a material with a bandgap of
approximately 1.75 eV so that it can be current-matched to the
bottom cell (McMeekin et al., 2016). Perovskite materials have
several attributes that make them attractive for use as a top
layer in a tandem cell. This paper has already discussed several
of the benefits, such as its high efficiencies and low costs.
Perovskites have one other very attractive feature that makes
them even more useful for tandem cells. They have a tunable
bandgap of 1.48 to 2.3 eV (McMeekin et al., 2016). With this
ability a perovskite material could be made to precisely match
what is needed in the tandem cell.
Tandem cells are attractive because it allows the creation of
cells that could pass the theoretical limit of normal cells.
With the low costs of processing perovskite and the fact that
the bulk cost of materials for a cell come from the common
materials already used in the silicon cells, a tandem cell could
be created that raises the efficiency of a solar panel without
increasing costs by too much. Mcmeekin et al. (2016)
demonstrated the following:
We fabricated planar heterojunction perovskite PVs
(photovoltaics), demonstrating PCE (power conversion
efficiency) of >17% and stabilized power output (SPO) of
16%. To demonstrate the potential impact of this ne
perovskite material in tandem solar cells, we created a
semi-transparent perovskite device and measured the
performance of a silicon PV after filtering the sunlight
through the perovskite top cell. The SI cells delivered an
efficiency boost of 7.3%, indicating the feasibility of
achieving >25%-efficient perovskite/Si tandem cells. (p.
152)

When comparing costs of solar power we must first have a

way to compare systems with different efficiencies. This
measurement is in cost per watt. The current retail cost per watt
of residential panels in the U.S. can be as low as $0.70 per watt
but is more likely to be around $1.00 per watt (Cost of Solar
Panels). We can assume that as the tandem silicon/perovskite
cells are perfected the cost of silicon only cells will continue to
fall at a slow rate as they have in the past. If we then assume
that the cost of a high efficiency tandem cell in a few years will
cost the same to produce as lower efficiency cells from now,
we can figure out the possible impact of this advancement.
For example, a panel from now costs $1.00 per watt and has
an efficiency of 20%. In the near future tandem cell can be
produced for the same cost but boosting the efficiency to 25%.
This represents a 25% increase in efficiency. Taking the best
case scenario that this savings is all passed on to the retail price
the cost for this tandem cell would now be $0.75 per watt. At
the same time traditional silicon solar panels could be expected
to drop at most $0.10 per watt. On a typical 5,000 watt system
the difference in cost for silicon solar panels vs. tandem panels
would be $4500 vs. $3,750, a $750 difference. If the tandem
cells live up to even higher expectations we could see
efficiencies of 30%. This would cut the cost per watt in half to
$0.50 per watt making the cost for panels of a 5,000 watt
system only $2,500.
VII. COST OF SOLAR
The boost to the efficiency of solar panels without the much
higher cost of traditional high efficiency panels seems like it
could be an instant boon to the adoption of solar power.
However, there are other costs to consider. When considering
the installed cost of solar power, panels are only one part.
There is cost of other equipment such as inverters, batteries,
wiring, mounts and more. Also, as most people do not install
the system themselves there is also the cost for that labor. In
many states there are requirements to pay for permits and
inspections and if the system will be connected to the power
grid there might be a connection cost from the utility (Cost of
Solar).
The current low-end total cost of installed solar power in
the U.S. is around $3.00 per watt while the average is around
$3.50 per watt (Cost of Solar). It continues to fall as shown
in figure 2, so in our near future scenario we can assume the
average price of $3.00 per watt. This means that for the typical
5,000 watt system we used earlier the average cost would be
$15,000. If we apply the best case scenario of a 50% drop in
the reduction of cost for the panels the price for installed
systems would drop to $12,500, only a 16.7% decrease. While

no utilities provided a standalone system has a lower cost per

watt than in the U.S. This means any savings on the panels is a
higher percentage of the cost.
IX. RESEARCH CONCLUSIONS

Fig. 2: Total Installed Cost per Watt (Cost of Solar)

this price drop would attract a new group of consumers the
price would still be seen as too high a cost for most.
This cost must be put into some perspective for potential
buyers. The easiest way to do that is to figure out how long it
will take to recoup the cost. The average cost of electricity in
the U.S. is $0.13 per kilowatt hour (kWh) (Cost Savings of
Solar). If you assume an average of 5 hours of light a day on
a 5,000 watt system you get about 9,000 kWh a year. This
provides a savings of $1,170 annually not accounting for a rise
in the price of electricity from the utilities. At $15,000 dollars
it takes 12.8 years to have the system pay for itself. When the
system only cost $12,500 to produce the same amount of
electricity the repayment time is only 10.6 years. By hitting the
return on investment halfway through the guarantied 20 year
period many more people might be convinced it is worth the
cost.
VIII. IMPACT ON THE GLOBAL COMMUNITY
Improvements to solar panels will continue any way they
can. Finding that the impact of any one advancement might not
significantly impact the total cost of solar and, therefore, not
significantly increase the adoption of solar will not prevent its
advancement. With the continued push to move towards green
energy we will see new and innovative ways of reducing cost
and expanding adoption.
The findings here support the research being done to create
more efficient tandem solar cells that will be required to move
past the limits on traditional cells. These advancements in
efficiency will help slowly expand the use of solar among
residential users. The bigger impact could be to larger
installations where utilities could see more massive saving
because of the large amount of panels used.
The small leap in the reduction of cost to small scale
systems compared to the slowing gradual reduction would have
a much bigger impact on developing countries. Where there are

Perovskite materials have a chance to make a leap in

reducing the cost of solar panels. The rapid improvement to
efficiency and stability mean that it could be viable on the
consumer market in just a few years. While it could reduce the
cost of panels by a good percentage of their cost, the impact on
the cost of the entire solar power system is much less. Because
of the slowing in the falling of prices of traditional silicon solar
panels, any way to re-invigorate this drop is welcome and
would help continue the rise in adoption of solar electricity on
a residential scale.
X. REFERENCES
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http://solar-power-now.com/cost-of-solar/
Cost of Solar Panels. (n.d.). Retrieved March 21, 2016, from
http://solar-power-now.com/cost-of-solar/cost-of-solarpanels/
Cost Savings of Solar. (n.d.) Retrieved March 21, 2016
http://solar-power-now.com/cost-of-solar/cost-savings-ofsolar/
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Hicks, W. (2016, February 8). Claims for solar cell efficiency
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