Impact of lifetime on the levelized cost of electricity from perovskite single junction and tandem solar cells

Abstract

With high efficiency and fast processing, metal halide perovskite (PK) solar cells promise a new paradigm for low-cost solar power. In addition to single junction device performance that is near the internal Shockley–Queisser limit, new tandem configurations promise even higher efficiencies. Efforts to commercialize PK-based modules are hindered by several factors including questions of cost and performance in the field. Long lifetimes are needed to achieve a low levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) and establish bankability. To understand the impact of device lifetime on LCOE we compared bottom-up cost and energy yield analyses for single-junction and tandem solar modules based on optical modeling of the device stacks, the device physics, and real-world advanced irradiance and temperature variation data. The degradation rate was taken to be a variable to examine the impact of stability on the LCOE. We show that both device and field lifetimes are critical to achieve a low LCOE for a solar power station. Additionally, for all PK device lifetimes, tandems constructed with higher-cost tandem partners will be economically disadvantaged in the market place.