Perovskite Solar Cells: Emerging Photovoltaic Technology for Achieving Net-Zero Emission Agrivoltaics Ecosystem

The expected population growth and resulting increase in food and energy demands have become global concerns to be addressed with urgent and targeted actions. Agrivoltaics has recently emerged as the practice of co-locating photovoltaic (PV) infrastructure and agriculture to alleviate land-use competition between energy and agriculture production. However, PV and agriculture are highly dependent on the utilization of sunlight. Therefore, the design of a PV system is critical for maximizing electricity generation and plant biomass production. Perovskite solar cells (PSCs), as an emerging PV technology, attract intensive attention owing to low fabrication cost, high performance, and tunable transmission. Accordingly, PSCs show promising application in a net-zero emission agrivoltaics ecosystem. In this perspective, the advantages of PSC-integrated agrivoltaics are discussed by comparing with traditional PV technologies. Thereafter, the promising and sustainable way is proposed to employ PSCs for electricity generation, plant growth, and aquatic animal development in an agrivoltaics ecosystem. Lastly, a design principle is provided for tailoring PSCs for a sustainable agrivoltaics ecosystem to simultaneously solve the energy and food crises.