Saule Technologies has announced they will showcase their A4 flexible, printed, perovskite photovoltaic module at a forthcoming conference and exhibition in Santa Clara, California.
Participants will be shown an operating module printed on an ultra-thin plastic foil able to charge personal electronic devices, demonstrating one of the many possible applications of the solar cells developed by Saule.
Saule Technologies has pioneered the application of inkjet printing for the fabrication of perovskite solar modules. Increasing the size of the module and the area covered by the perovskite itself is crucial for large-scale production. While it is already relatively easy to obtain small, 1cm2 cells operating with high efficiency in laboratory conditions, reaching satisfactory parameters for a module almost 400 times bigger is a significant achievement.
Thanks to the cooperation with the National Centre for Research and Development, the company created an independent lab-scale production line. 20 scientists and engineers from 11 countries are working on upscaling the production to industry level. The prototype industry-scale production line is expected to be presented during the Autumn of 2018.
"Scaling up the size of perovskite solar cells is one of the biggest challenges for companies and researchers working with this technology. Printing a stable and operating A4 size module has been among our most important milestones for 2017 and we are more than happy to be able to present it for the first time in the USA."
Olga Malinkiewicz, PhD, CTO & co-founder at Saule Technologies
"Some industries of our interest require the modules to be large enough to make the application commercially viable. Scaling the size up is crucial especially when thinking about construction and space industry. The progress we reported so far is sufficient to let us sign the first cooperation agreements with future clients."
Piotr Krych, CEO & co-founder at Saule Technologies
Saule Technologies - Flexible ink-jet printed perovskite solar cells