The resource demands of multi-terawatt-scale perovskite tandem photovoltaics

• DOI: 10.1016/j.joule.2024.01.024
• Publication Date: 2024-02-27T15:48:34Z
• Authors: Lukas Wagner; Jiajia Suo; Bowen Yang; Dmitry Bogachuk; Estelle Gervais; Robert Pietzcker; Andrea Gassmann; Jan Christoph Gol...
• Keywords: 0303 health sciences; Perovskite solar cells; Materialkemi; 600; resource demand; recycling; sustainability; 333; Photovoltaics; 03 medical and health sciences; terawatt; Materials Chemistry; supply criticality; Energy Systems; Energisystem

Photovoltaics (PV) and wind are the most important energy-conversion technologies for cost-efficient climate change mitigation. To reach international climate goals, the annual PV module production must be expanded to multi-terawatt (TW) scale. Economic and resource restraints demand the implementation of cost-efficient multi-junction technologies, for which perovskite-based tandem technologies are highly promising. In this work, the resource demand of the emerging perovskite PV technology is investigated, considering two factors of supply criticality, namely, mining capacity for minerals and the production capacity for synthetic materials. Overall, the expansion of perovskite PV to a multi-TW scale may not be limited by material supply if certainmaterials, especially indium, canbereplaced. Moreover, organic charge-transport materials face currently unresolved scalability challenges. This study demonstrates that, besides the improvement of efficiency and stability, perovskite PV research and development also need to be guided by sustainable materials choices and design-for-recycling considerations.