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On October 22, 2014, U.S. Department of Energy's SunShot initiative awarded more than $14 million to ten research institutions to meet or exceed SunShot targets by improving performance, efficiency, and durability of solar photovoltaic devices. The University of Nebraska-Lincoln was one of the ten recipients and will receive $1,211,075. The research and demonstration projects will explore a spectrum of leading-edge solutions, from new high-performance materials like perovskites to novel techniques for creating solar cells with high efficiency and lower manufacturing cost.
SunShot's next generation photovoltaic projects investigate transformational photovoltaic technologies with the potential to meet proposed cost targets and to make solar energy cost-competitive with other forms of electricity by the end of the decade. The projects' goals are to:
- Increase efficiency
- Reduce costs
- Improve reliability
- Create more secure and sustainable supply chains.
The University of Nebraska-Lincoln project will develop tandem junction solar cells with organo-lead trihalide perovskites based on high-efficiency perovskite cells as the top cell, and c-Si cells as the bottom cell. Awardees are creating a novel top cell system that is compatible to the bottom high-efficiency c-Si solar cell. The novel design will boost the power conversion efficiency of silicon solar cells over 30 percent under air mass 1.5 spectrum with minimal cost increases.