A new EU funded project CHEOPS has been official launched. In order to achieve its ambitious goals, CHEOPS unites a team of European leaders in academic and industrial perovskite research.
The title of the EU funded project is Production technology to achieve low Cost and Highly Efficient phOtovoltaic Perovskite Solar cells - CHEOPS. It runs from 1st Feb 2016 through to 31st Jan 2019. The project total cost is EUR 5,042,913 of which the EU contribution is EUR 3, 299, 095.
The aim of CHEOPS is to develop very low-cost but highly performing photovoltaic devices based on the emerging perovskite technology. At lab scale energy conversion by perovskite devices was rapidly advanced to efficiencies exceeding 20%. But only few attempts at upscaling have been made, yielding significantly reduced efficiencies below 9%. In addition, questions about material stability and reliable measurement procedures are still under discussion.
CHEOPS will now scale up the lab results to modules manufactured in a pre-production environment while maintaining high efficiencies (above 14% stable efficiency in modules of at least 15cm x 15cm). As the production processes will be designed for large volume production at very low-cost, this will demonstrate the potential of perovskite cells as a technology well suited for building-integrated photovoltaics.
At the same time, CHEOPS will develop materials and processes to achieve very high efficiency (exceeding 29% on 2x2cm2 cells) at low cost using a tandem configuration with a crystalline silicon heterojunction cell.
The CHEOPS consortium will also perform a sustainability assessment from a life-cycle perspective to anticipate potential risks for the technology (including business, technological, environmental, social & political risks). They will establish a quantified future development roadmap as well as protocols for stability testing and for reliable measurements.
In summary, CHEOPS will decisively advance the potentially game-changing perovskite technology towards the market and will thus help to face the energy challenge in Europe and beyond.
The 12 partners will combine their expertise, knowledge, and resources to reach the project’s goal:
- The University of Oxford
- La Università degli Studi di Roma Tor Vergata
- EPFL
- The University of Salford
- CSEM
- Tyndall, Ireland
- INERIS Accelopment AP
- Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Polymer Research
- SmartGreenScans
- Oxford Photovoltaics Ltd
- Merck KGaA