Perovskite panels ????

[Alisobob]

https://www.yahoo.com/tech/s/generation-solar-panels-far-cheaper-more-efficient-scientists-155729864.html

[SunEagle]

https://www.yahoo.com/tech/s/generat...155729864.html

Interesting. I wonder how abundant perovskite is?

Also the claim of 40 % cheaper and 50% more efficient than existing commercial solar cells is a big statement without any evidence to back up those numbers.

[J.P.M.]

https://www.yahoo.com/tech/s/generat...155729864.html

I'm skeptical. I'll wait & see. Looks & smells like hype, pie in the sky B.S. to me.

[SunEagle]

I'm skeptical. I'll wait & see. Looks & smells like hype, pie in the sky B.S. to me.

Darn. I almost ran out to purchase stock in some mine in the Ural mountains.

[pleppik]

There's a lot of justifiable excitement in the research community about perovskite for PV, but this is still probably at least 5-10 years from being commercially available. Assuming it ever gets there.

Researchers are excited about perovskites for two reasons: (1) they have the potential to be cheap to manufacture compared to silicon, and (2) experimenters have been able to rapidly increase the efficiency of perovskite PV materials, suggesting that it's possible to make perovskites as efficient as silicon.

That said, the best perovskite materials are still much less efficient than the best silicon cells, and there are some significant challenges to commercializing this material. As I understand it (and i could be wrong), perovskites are inherently more sensitive to moisture than silicon, so encapsulating the PV modules in a way they'll last 25+ years will be a challenge. Also, the best perovskites found so far contain a large percentage of lead in their chemical structure, so manufacturing and disposal could generate a lot of hazardous waste.

So file this under "something to watch, but don't get too excited yet."