Macquarie has successfully secured three significant grants in the latest round of the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) funding.
Announced on behalf of the Australian Government, $15.14 million was awarded to 16 research projects to help address solar photovoltaic (PV) panel efficiency, overall cost reductions and end-of-life issues.
Tackling cost barriers
Dr David Payne from the School of Engineering, and Head of PV and Optical Characterisation Lab, has been awarded $420,000 for the Macquarie-led project: Substitution of niche-market PV production tools with cost-effective consumer-electronics technology.
This project aims to develop a series of cost-effective tools needed to create solar cells and modules which are currently highly specialised and expensive to buy, and often use a lot of energy to run.
“There is a growing need to accelerate the uptake of sustainable energy such as solar PV so we can quickly move away from dependency on fossil fuels, which are not only limited, but also have very negative effects on our climate due to CO2 emissions,” David explains.
“Solar PV manufacturing is a competitive market with various global companies producing solar modules to sell.
“So, we can expect that if they can reduce their costs of making that product, then the majority of those savings will be passed on to the customers. Essentially, it will be cheaper to buy solar modules for installation on your roof.”
Associate Professor Shujuan Huang from the School of Engineering is also MQ Chief Investigator on two successful collaborative projects: Durable Silicon Perovskite Tandem PV ($987,285) and Triple Junction Silicon-Perovskite-Perovskite Tandem PV ($1,494,340).
The first aims to develop solutions to improve the cost-effectiveness of solar cells by enhancing durability of silicon (Si)-perovskite tandem devices whilst maintaining high power conversion efficiency.
“According to International Technology Roadmap for Photovoltaics (ITRPV), Si-tandem cells, a technology surpassing the efficiency record of single junction cells, are predicted to enter production in year 2024,” Shujuan explains.
“Perovskite solar cells have demonstrated great potential for Si based tandems given the unprecedented progress in device performance. However, the shorter lifetime of perovskite cells does not match the current market dominating Si solar cells.
Our goal is to develop a durable high efficiency Si-perovskite PV product that will be a truly cost-effective alternative to current market dominating Si solar cells.
The second project aims to develop next generation ultra-high efficiency multi-junction solar cells which can significantly improve the overall cost-effectiveness of photovoltaics.
“We will develop low-cost materials and fabrication processes to demonstrate next generation triple junction silicon-perovskite devices with minimal additional fabrication cost but much higher efficiency,” she explains.
“The overall price reduction of the electricity produced by solar cells will lead to an increased uptake of renewable energy.”