UNSW researchers achieve 23.5% efficiency record for 676 cm2 perovskite PV submodule

Engineers from the University of New South Wales Sydney (UNSW) have teamed up with Chinese perovskite module manufacturer UtmoLight to set a world efficiency record for large-area perovskite solar submodules.

The UNSW team, led by Scientia Professor Xiaojing Hao from the university’s School of Photovoltaic and Renewable Energy Engineering, achieved a certified stabilized power conversion efficiency of 23.5% for a perovskite submodule, surpassing the previous benchmark by 0.6 percentage points.

The name of the entity that certified the result was not disclosed.

The researchers said the result is particularly significant as it sets a new efficiency benchmark for a 30 cm × 30 cm perovskite submodule with an aperture area of 676 cm², further narrowing the efficiency gap with small-area laboratory cells, which typically measure about 1 cm².

Hao said the milestone demonstrates that perovskite solar technology can maintain high efficiency over much larger areas than laboratory-scale cells, reinforcing its potential for scalable manufacturing and widespread use in PV modules.

“For us, this is not only about setting another efficiency record,” she said. “It is about developing materials and device concepts that continue to perform when they are translated from laboratory cells to industrially relevant areas.”

“Materials that work exceptionally well in a small laboratory device do not necessarily behave in the same way under scaled-up processing conditions. Our focus is therefore not simply on finding high-performance materials, but on understanding how to design materials and interfaces that remain effective under the conditions required for large-area fabrication,” she added.

The world record was achieved by eliminating the conventional nickel oxide layer, which is commonly used in perovskite solar cells, particularly in submodules, to help prevent electrical short circuits and ensure proper device operation. However, nickel oxide can react adversely with perovskite materials, contributing to instability, while its deposition also adds a manufacturing step.

Hao said the UNSW team used materials innovation and a different approach to cell fabrication to eliminate the need for the nickel oxide layer. The approach also enables a hole-selective contact to form directly during fabrication, rather than through a conventional layer-by-layer process.

“Achieving high efficiency at this scale requires much more than simply transferring a laboratory process to a larger substrate,” she said.

The researchers now plan to scale up their work by producing and testing a full-size module with an area of 2.8 m², representative of commercial PV module dimensions.

They are targeting an efficiency of about 18% to 19% for the larger module but acknowledge that further work is needed to improve efficiency, reproducibility and long-term stability before the technology can be widely deployed.

The work is part of UNSW’s industry partnership with UtmoLight, announced earlier this year.

The agreement enables the partners to conduct collaborative research and jointly promote the industrialization of perovskite PV technologies. It also allows the researchers to assess the scalability of new concepts at an early stage, rather than spending years developing materials that may not be suitable for industrial-scale production.

Hao said this is particularly important for perovskite technologies, as the transition from laboratory research to large-scale manufacturing remains a key challenge.

“We have been able to test our ideas to check if they can be upscaled, which means that we are not wasting our time on things that aren’t feasible,” she said, adding that “this is also good for industry as well, because they get to know whether there are innovations that can help them overcome some limitations in their large-scale processing systems.”