Perovskite has held onto the headlines. The goal is to create a solar cell made of much cheaper materials with higher efficiencies. The material is showing greater promise – 26.4% when combined with standard silicon solar cells. Oxford PV is building a factory – and other groups suggest perovskite sales might happen in a commercial setting in 2018.

Now, a great Australian group (that has also signed a research deal with a pretty large solar manufacturer) is getting money to install a system. A small one – but a real one that we can touch.

Yes, the long term window is still long before this product could come to be deployed in any considerable fashion – but once someone figures out the secret sauce and starts selling a 25%+ efficient solar panel, we’ll see uptake accelerate.

SOURCEThe company qualified for the H2020-SGA-FET-GRAPHENE project funding via its small R&D operations in Rome, Italy. The project is focused on the development and the installation of a Perovskite Solar Cell (PSC) Photovoltaic (PV) 10m2 solar array in the Greek island of Crete. This is designed to test and evaluate degradation rates of perovskite solar cells and modules in real-world conditions that could lead to improved encapsulation of perovskite solar cell enabled glass substrates, while investigating, in particular, the usage of graphene in PSC solar cells.

Sign up for a weekly digest of solar industry news, delivered to your inbox every Tuesday.