About Diamond

Overview of the Problematic behind DIAMOND

Mitigating the global climate change caused by anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions represents one of the major challenges of the twenty first century. The highly ambitious goal to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050 builds the core of the EU Green Deal and the Horizon Europe Strategic Plan. As outlined in EU’s Strategic Energy Technology plan, this requires a rapid and widespread expansion of current photovoltaic (PV) installations, which demands ground-breaking technological improvements in PV research and development. Moreover, today less than 1% of PV modules are fabricated in the EU, and it is highly desirable to bring PV manufacturing home to the EU to establish an affordable and clean energy supply, ensuring strategic autonomy and contributing to green economy.

Thus, emerging metal-halide perovskite solar cells (PSCs) have a tremendous potential to revolutionize the European energy sector.

01

Who we are

DIAMOND project joins 6 European leading universities (UGroningen, UUppsala, EPFL, URome-TV, UPorto, UMarburg), 2 research institutes (Fraunhofer ISE, CEA) and 4 industry partners (Dyenamo, BeDimensional, Solaronix, PixelVoltaic) from 7 different countries.

02

Our Mission

We aim at developing ultra-stable, highly-efficient and low-cost perovskite photovoltaics with minimised environmental impact, promising stabilities far beyond all previous achievements of photovoltaic solar cells.

03

Our Approach

To develop novel hermetic encapsulation approaches and highly stable device designs that are evaluated by standardized and novel stability assessment methods. DIAMOND also aims to optimise materials and cell stacks to reach efficiencies exceeding the record values of silicon PV. Fully printable module architectures are targeted for rapid industrial up-scaling, allowing lower manufacturing costs and local production in the EU. Specific device designs that enable the lowest carbon-footprint, material criticality and toxicity together with enhanced recyclability are targeted.

04

Summing up

Combining these ambitions, DIAMOND strives to provide a strong impact on the EU’s future environmental, economic and societal development, paving the way for an EU-made sustainable energy technology with the lowest carbon-footprint that ensures a full integration into the circular economy.

Objectives

01

Ultra-stable Perovskite PV

  • demonstrate, for the first time, longest lifetimes combined with record-high efficiencies: less than ≤3% loss over 5,000 h of operation under AM1.5G illumination (ISOS L1) for PCE ≥ 20% perovskite devices
  • introduce innovative glass-frit sealing for hermetic encapsulation with minimal helium leakage rates
  • surpass the D3 ISOS standard (85%RH, 85°C), the T3 ISOS standard (-40°C, =85°C cycling in ambient conditions) as well as outdoor operation studies in multiple locations throughout Europe (O2 ISOS), achieving projected 25 years lifetime in operation

02

Record-high Device Efficiencies Beyond Silicon PV

  • developing cutting edge α-FAPbI3 phase-stabilized perovskite, multifunctional molecularly engineered additives and low dimensional passivation layers as well as optimized stack designs and electrode materials
  • reach highest efficiencies beyond the current world record of silicon PV, yielding PCE ≥ 27%
  • demonstrate Sn/Pb-based perovskites PCEs as high as 24%.
  • implementation of ultra-stable and fully printable carbon-based PSC (C-PSC), overcoming instabilities such as interconnection or shading induced degradation.
  • boost PCE of C-PSC modules to 23%

03

Scalability and Market Potential

  • develop fully printed photovoltaics, enabling local production at the lowest cost, demostrating that investment cost for future European PV factories can be reduced by at least a factor of five
  • bridge the scale-up efficiency gap, achieving PCE of 24% for mini modules manufactured with laboratory processes
  • yield a 100 cm² module fully fabricated outside the glovebox with PCE ≥ 18%
  • install a demonstrator module array for outdoor tests on industrial manufacturing equipment

04

Paving the Way for a Future PV Technology with Lowest Environmental Impact

  • produce fully printed C-PSC, reducing the CO2-eq footprint of PV modules by 95% and reducing instabilities such as interconnection or shading induced degradation
  • implement innovative safe-by-design device sealing architecture with functionalized lead-sequestration materials, mitigating leakage issues
  • designed-for-recycling approach to enable re-manufacturing at the lowest material and energy losses – integration in circular economy

DIAMOND's Interdisciplinary Approach

The activities in DIAMOND comprise the processing and characterization of stable carbon-electrode based PSCs and PSMs, targeting low environmental impacts and high market potential. This requires an interdisciplinary interplay of the involved expertise of the partners in Chemistry, Physics, Engineering, and Environmental Sciences.

Summary

01

Specific Needs

For a successful commercial implementation, 4 key challenges in R&I need to be overcome:

    • Efficiency of cell and modules needs to approach or exceed that of established silicon PV;
    • Stability: material and cell lifetime need to be improved without sacrifice of PCE. Hermetic encapsulation to protect perovskite from oxygen is not yet available;
    • Cost/Scalability: To reach lowest costs, the limitations of established silicon and perovskite PV manufacturing technologies which require equipment-, time- and energy-intensive production steps need to be overcome;
    • Sustainability aspects have not been sufficiently addressed in previous PV developments.

02

Expected Results

DIAMOND aims to outperform the state-of-the-art PV in all 4 key challenges, reaching

    • highest efficiencies (≥27%) for cells, surpassing silicon PV, and significantly reduce scale-up loss for modules (≥24%);
    • ultra-stable cells (5,000h at MPP with 20% PCE) and innovative glass-frit sealing to ensure hermetic encapsulation (>25 years outdoors);
    • materials and process development for fully-printed modules (18%, 100cm²) manufactured with scalable industrial equipment in ambient environment conditions;
    • PV modules with lowest CO2-eq footprint, minimized critical material demand, and a safe-by-design & designed-for-recycling device architecture.

03

Outcomes

  • Highest efficiencies and stabilities significantly reduce the technological risk associated to the commercialization of printed perovskite PV.
  • Minimised environmental impact of perovskite PV by reduced lead content by bandgap-tuneable Sn/Pb perovskites. Safe-by-design architecture to sequestrate Pb leakages.
  • Integration and application possibilities of PV: High-performing devices enable the integration in tandem PV and in buildings, vehicles, agriculture, among others.
  • Accelerate the commercialization: Fully printed perovskite PV can reduce investment costs for new PV fabs in the EU by >80% and can be implemented by advancing existing industrial technologies, drastically lowering the (re-)entry barriers into the PV market. The significantly increased PCE, stability and sustainability, will further reduce the technological risk for commercialization of perovskite PV.

04

Impacts

    • In line with EU and international ambition: SDGs, EU Green Deal, SET Plan, KSO, HE Strategic Plan.
    • Economic: Drastic reduction of PV module cost (CoO <0.1€/Wp) and PV factory CAPEX (1/5 of latest Si PV), enabling a rapid establishment and expansion of the EU module production towards TW-scale PV. DIAMOND promotes the EU industrial leadership in PV and accelerates the clean and sustainable transition of the energy sector.
    • Societal/Environmental: Minimise the CO2 emissions of PV to the lowest limit, enabling a European transition to climate neutrality. Designed-for-recycling PV modules geared up for an integration into an European climate neutral and circular economy.
    • Political/Societal: Enable an European strategic open autonomy through competitive local PV module production in the EU and minimised imports of CRMs. Pave the way for low-cost affordable and clean energy from perovskite PV made in the EU.