LAUSR

Abstract Perovskite solar cells have shown an impressive performance evolution during the last years. This technology has been mostly tested under laboratory conditions using small area devices. In this work, the outdoor photovoltaic performance of perovskite solar cells was evaluated under real tropical weather conditions. Specifically, two perovskite modules with active area of 17 and 50 cm2 were fabricated, encapsulated and tested. Taking a commercial silicon panel as reference, both technologies were evaluated for 500 h correlating the in-situ I-V measurements with atmospheric variables measured every minute during the light hours. To obtain the performance and the average outdoor efficiency of devices, we proposed a new adapted methodology based on the standard IEC 61853-1, showing the photovoltaic parameters performance through maps, to graphically visualize their behavior in a broad range of atmospheric conditions. Additionally, we demonstrated that the power delivery and short circuit current of both technologies correlate linearly with the atmospheric variables. Moreover, the open circuit voltage of perovskite technology exhibited a nonlinear behavior and an improved performance with temperature at high irradiance regimes. This work presents reliable information concerning perovskite solar technology performance under real outdoor operation conditions, being this crucial to identify competitive advantages of this technology and the aspects to be improved.