Towards market commercialization: lifecycle economic and environmental evaluation of scalable perovskite solar cells

Abstract

Many economic and environmental studies on novel perovskite solar cells (PSCs),published ex post the development stage to investigate the market competitiveness,have focused on laboratory-scale PSC architectures that are not amenable for upscal-ing. In this paper, we evaluate the market potential and environmental sustainabilityof a scalable carbon-electrode-based PSC by benchmarking it to the market dominat-ing c-Si photovoltaics and CIGS thin film photovoltaics. The analysis covers the PSCsfull lifecycle, at the module and system levels (residential and utility scale), and isbased on realistic annual energy output data derived from energy yield calculations.We find that this PSC can produce electricity at low cost (3–6€cents/kWh), withlowest energy payback (0.6–0.8 years) and greenhouse gas emissions (15–25g CO2eq./kWh) compared with grid-connected PV market alternatives, assuming 25yearsof lifetime, expected PV system cost reductions, and PSC module recycling andrefurbishment.