Mass production of Perovskite Solar Cells According to pv magazine, Polish perovskite solar cell manufacturer, Saule Technologies, has inaugurated its new cell factory in Wrocław. The factory has a pilot […]
According to pv magazine, Polish perovskite solar cell manufacturer, Saule Technologies, has inaugurated its new cell factory in Wrocław.
The factory has a pilot production line which enables all laboratory processes to be reproduced in a fully automated manner. At the same time, they try to establish a highly efficient industrial, targeting a capacity of 100 MW.
Olga Malinkiewicz is CTO and co-founder of Saule Technologies. In fact, she pioneered a room-temperature inkjet printing process eight years ago. At that time, she was a doctoral student at the Institute of Molecular Sciences (ICMol) at the University of Valencia. The process will be able to reduce manufacturing costs remarkably.
The new facility will produce lightweight and flexible cells. As a result, the expected applications are laptop, car, drone, spacecraft or building, or even in the shade and indoors. The first application will be to power internet-of-things devices.
Saule Technologies is a high-tech company that develops innovative solar cells based on perovskite materials. It has pioneered the use of inkjet printing for the production of flexible, lightweight, ultrathin, and semi-transparent photovoltaic modules.
As a PhD student at the University of Valencia, Olga Malinkiewicz invents a revolutionary method. It was to produce solar cells by coating perovskites on flexible foils. This is the start of the Polish high-tech company.
Perovskites are a family of materials with a specific crystal structure, named after the mineral with that structure. When we use them to create solar cells, they have shown potential for high performance and low production costs.
Perovskite solar cells have shown remarkable progress in recent years with rapid increases in conversion efficiency. The number becomes from about 3% in 2006 to over 25% today. Of course, perovskite solar cells have become highly efficient in a very short time. However, there are several challenges to be remained.
We think that 2020 is the year to raise our awareness on climate change. Of course, climate change is not a new concept and we have tackled this issue for many years. For example, many countries across the globe agreed with Kyoto Protocol in 1997 to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. However, the situation is not turned around drastically. As a result, we have experienced many natural disasters in the years.
Therefore, we need more innovations to change our society better. In addition, innovation needs time, money and energy. Saule Technologies’ Perovskite Solar Cells is really a good example. It took 6 years to establish mass production factory. Of course, its founders and their colleagues and partners have experienced so many ups and downs to reach this stage. Thus, our passion might be the most important thing to realize innovation. This is because we cannot work hard, finance, invest in our time and put on effort without our passion.
At the same time, we need more innovations and breakthroughs to make our society and the earth more sustainable. It seems that we cannot waste our time to move the situation forward for future generations. Thus, we will be able to be inspired by Olga’s initiative and should find what we are passionate about.
