Perovskites hold a place of honor in the pantheon of much-heralded clean energy breakthroughs that have yet to actually arrive, alongside small modular nuclear reactors and solid-state batteries. In theory, these crystal structures could radically improve solar panels’ capabilities by absorbing wavelengths of light that conventional silicon cells can’t catch. But the stunning advances in R&D specimens have yet to infiltrate the cold, hard world of commercial solar manufacturing.
Startup Tandem PV is fighting to break that impasse with its new 65,000-square-foot perovskite factory in Fremont, California, the same Bay Area locale Tesla chose for large-scale electric vehicle manufacturing more than a decade ago. In an exclusive first look ahead of the facility’s April 21 grand opening, CEO Scott Wharton showed Canary Media via video chat how the automated factory line pumps out large panels of glass treated with a photovoltaic perovskite coating. Conventional silicon photovoltaic cells convert the sun’s rays to electricity with about 22% efficiency; layering them with Tandem’s perovskite glass in a “solar panel sandwich” lifts that efficiency to 30%, Wharton said.
That’s a huge jump for the solar industry: These paired, or “tandem,” solar plants could produce one-third more energy in the same physical footprint than regular solar panels on the market do today.
