Marrying new PV materials to proven technologies and manufacturing infrastructure to increase the amount of electricity harvested from the sun.
I worked as a Processing Engineering Intern at Tandem PV from mid June to mid September in 2019. There, I helped design facilities, instrumentation, and processes to enable the manufacture of Tandem Perovskite-Silicon solar cells. I should probably take a second to explain what Perovskites are:
Perovskite Phovoltaic Materials
Perovskites are a new type of photovoltaic material (can produce electricity from light) that aims to make solar cells more efficient while simultaneously reducing the cost to make a solar module/panel (collection of solar cells). They are extremely customizable - meaning that you can easily change their electronic properties by tweaking the ratios of their chemical components. They can be solution processed - meaning that they can be mixed up in a vial and deposited on a surface by spraying, painting, or dripping with very low costs. Finally, they work very well - over the 11 years since the first study using perovskites as a solar material was published (Kojima, et al. 2009), the efficiency of perovskite solar devices has more than doubled, recently reaching parity with traditional silicon solar devices.
Because of their incredible potential, 1000 institutes around the world are working with perovskite materials, increasing their stability, efficiency, and developing ways to manufacture perovskite solar cells (Jena, et al. 2019). Many believe that they are a game-changing technology.
Check out the below to learn more.
Because of their incredible potential, 1000 institutes around the world are working with perovskite materials, increasing their stability, efficiency, and developing ways to manufacture perovskite solar cells (Jena, et al. 2019). Many believe that they are a game-changing technology.
Check out the below to learn more.
At Tandem PV, I found myself at the front lines of the commercialization push for perovskite materials. Working along side engineers from Stanford, University of Virginia, I helped build a future reality for solar manufacturing.
The name of the company comes from the type of solar device they make, a tandem solar cell with a silicon component and a perovskite component. This works because they both utilize different components of the light spectrum, meaning that with a Tandem cell you can get more out of sunlight than either of the individual cells - simply by stacking a perovskite cell on top of a silicon cell.
The name of the company comes from the type of solar device they make, a tandem solar cell with a silicon component and a perovskite component. This works because they both utilize different components of the light spectrum, meaning that with a Tandem cell you can get more out of sunlight than either of the individual cells - simply by stacking a perovskite cell on top of a silicon cell.