New world record for solar panel efficiency

British startup Oxford PV, founded in 2015 by experts from Oxford University in the UK, has announced a new world record for configuration of photovoltaic panels with an efficiency of 26.90%. The new technology uses tandem silicon-perovskite solar cells.

Independently verified
The efficiency of Oxford PV's new PV panel technology has been independently measured and certified by the German Fraunhofer CalLab. The tandem panel combining perovskite and silicon outperformed the best silicon panels to date, which achieve efficiencies of around 25% over a similar area.

A 60-cell residential module made using Oxford PV's tandem solar cells with perovskite on silicon achieved an unprecedented 26.9% efficiency, outperforming the current best silicon modules with a similar area.

British experts have succeeded in developing a breakthrough glass-to-glass panel that uses 60 solar cells over an area of 1.6 m2. The new panel weighs less than 25 kg and is ideally sized for use in domestic rooftop photovoltaic power plants.

It is manufactured in Germany
Oxford PV manufactures its patented high-efficiency silicon and perovskite-based tandem solar cells at its manufacturing facility in Brandenburg an der Havel, Germany.

"This achievement builds on our previous efficiency of 25% for an industrial-sized module, which we announced in January 2024. Over the past decade, our team has broken several records for perovskite and silicon-based tandem cell efficiency. Our goal now is to bring this high efficiency solar technology into commercial mass production," said Chris Case, CTO of Oxford PV.

UK experts at Oxford PV plan to further refine the new panel technology. In theory, tandem cells can achieve efficiencies of over 43%, significantly higher than the ceiling of around 30% that applies to traditional silicon solar cells. It is Oxford PV's intention to increase the efficiency of its solar panels above 30% in the near future.

Promising perovskite
Perovskite cells are a relatively young technology, having been developed in 2009 with an efficiency of four per cent. In just two years, scientists have increased their efficiency to sixteen percent, something that took silicon decades to achieve.

At the end of 2018, scientists achieved a new world record for perovskite cell efficiency of more than 23 percent (by comparison, traditional silicon cells have been around for more than 60 years and have a peak efficiency of more than 25 percent). Now the experts at PV Oxfort have pushed the efficiency of tandem perovskite-silicon panels to 26.90 percent.

Another reason for the researchers' interest in perovskite panels is that these panels are much easier to manufacture and therefore cheaper. In addition, these solar panels are lightweight, can be bent and, most importantly, can also be transparent. According to Saule Technologies, a Polish company that is also developing perovskite panel technology, the weight of the panels is very low - approximately 1 kg/m 2 . This represents a huge difference compared to traditional silicon crystalline panels, which weigh approximately 10 kg/m 2 .

In addition, perovskite solar cells can theoretically achieve very high efficiencies because of this. The combination of silicon and perovskite in a single cell means that each material operates in its optimal solar spectrum.

The perovskite layer is placed on top of the silicon layer, so it first captures and converts some of the sunlight, while the rest passes through the silicon layer, which converts the rest. Thanks to this so-called tandem structure, cells combining perovskite and silicon can achieve much higher efficiencies than pure silicon cells.

According to the expert, perovskite cell technology opens up completely new possibilities for solar photovoltaics. Perovskite panels can be installed on virtually any object or material. Whether it is a laptop, a phone, a car, a drone, a spaceship, the face of a smartwatch or the back of a mobile phone.