Impact of lifetime on the levelized cost of electricity from perovskite single junction and tandem solar cells

With high efficiency and fast processing, metal halide perovskite (PK) solar cells promise a new paradigm for low-cost solar power. In addition to single junction device performance that is near the internal Shockley-Queisser limit, new tandem configurations promise even higher efficiencies. Efforts to commercialize PK-based modules are hindered by several factors including questions of cost and performance in the field. Long lifetimes are needed to achieve a low levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) and establish bankability. To understand the impact of device lifetime on LCOE we compared bottom-up cost and energy yield analyses for single-junction and tandem solar modules based on optical modeling of the device stacks, the device physics, and real-world advanced irradiance and temperature variation data. The degradation rate was taken to be a variable to examine the impact of stability on the LCOE. We show that both device and field lifetimes are critical to achieve a low LCOE for a solar power station. Additionally, for all PK device lifetimes, tandems constructed with higher-cost tandem partners will be economically disadvantaged in the market place.