Testing the next generation of solar panels

Exposing emerging solar technology to harsh Australian weather is helping to turn prototypes into dependable power technology.

On a 25-by-25-metre patch of land at UNSW Sydney’s Water Research Laboratory in Manly Vale, the future of solar power is facing a punishing test.

Up to 160 next-generation solar modules will be mounted outdoors and exposed to the conditions lab experiments can’t fully replicate – changing temperatures, humidity, intense ultraviolet light, rain, salty air and storms.

Some modules could fail an important performance threshold within months – but UNSW’s Dr Jessica Yajie Jiang says this is what makes the work valuable.

“You have to test them in the outdoor environment and see how they really perform,” Dr Jiang says.

“Each module has its own personality. You need to dive in and understand the failure mechanism for each one.”

She is leading a new $18 million, five-year project to field-test commercial perovskite and perovskite-silicon tandem modules, supported by $5.6 million from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency, opens in a new window (ARENA).

“The question is whether these perovskite modules will give us the lifetime we expect,” Dr Jiang says.