Techno-economic and environmental sustainability of industrial-scale productions of perovskite solar cells

Perovskite solar cells (PSCs) have been intensively studied as a future photovoltaic (PV) technology. Yet, its potential for large-scale application is unclear due to the barriers of short lifetime, scale-up challenges, and heavy metal usage in the perovskite layer. As a result, the question becomes how to develop PSCs towards industrialization and this determines whether PSCs can share part of the PV market with c-Si solar cells in the future. A thorough sustainability assessment, including technological, economic, and environmental perspectives, and their trade-offs, of large-scale PSCs is imperative to investigate the pathway to develop this technology. The results show that extended lifetime is one of the prerequisites for having low cost and environmental impacts, but sustainability performance can be improved and even comparable with c-Si solar cells if certain strategies, such as using inorganic transport materials and alloyed perovskite are followed.