Performance Evaluation of Emerging Perovskite Photovoltaic Energy-Harvesting System for BIPV Applications

Perovskite solar cells (PSCs) are emerging photovoltaics (PVs) with promising optoelectronic characteristics. PSCs can be semitransparent (ST), which is beneficial in many innovative applications, including building-integrated photovoltaics (BIPVs). While PSCs exhibit excellent performance potential, enhancements in their stability and scalable manufacturing are required before they can be widely deployed. This work evaluates the real-world effectiveness of using PSCs in BIPVs to accelerate the development progress toward practical implementation. Given the present constraints on PSC module size and efficiency, bus stop shelters are selected for investigation in this work, as they provide a suitably scaled application representing a realistic near-term test case for early-stage research and engineering. An energy-harvesting system for a bus stop shelter in Astana, Kazakhstan, demonstrates the potential performance evaluation platform that can be used for perovskite solar cell modules (PSCMs) in BIPVs. The system includes maximum power point tracking (MPPT) and charge controllers, which can supply PSCM energy to the electronic load. Based on our design, the bus stop shelter has non-transparent and ST PSCMs on the roof and sides, respectively. May (best-case) and December (worst-case) scenarios are considered. According to the results, the PSCMs-equipped bus stop shelter can generate sufficient daily energy for load even in a worst-case scenario.