Audio long read: A new kind of solar cell is coming — is it the future of green energy? - Nature.com
Audio long read: A new kind of solar cell is coming - is it the future of green energy?
Download the 29 December long read podcast
Perovskites are cheap, abundant photovoltaic materials that some have hailed as the future of green energy.
Around the world, companies are layering perovskites on top of traditional silicon to develop so-called tandem solar cells that some think could deliver at least 20% more power than a silicon cell alone.
However, there remain multiple issues to overcome before these products are ready for widespread uptake in the notoriously competitive solar-power market.
This is an audio version of our Feature A new kind of solar cell is coming: is it the future of green energy?
Never miss an episode. Subscribe to the Nature Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify or your favourite podcast app. An RSS feed for Nature Podcast is available too.
Related Knowledge Center: ENERGY BASICS: renewables
Renewable energy sources — once the fuel of the future, then practical in specific, narrow applications — are increasingly economic mainstream sources of power generation. Hydropower was long the mainstay of U.S. renewable electricity generation, although wind power surpassed hydro for the first time in 2019, and solar continues its rapid growth. The continued growth of wind and solar, with their fluctuations, is tied in part to improvements in storage technology: batteries.