The Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin (HZB), PEPPERONI project partner and coordinator, just published its newest research results on perovskite solar cells in an article in Advanced Energy Materials. Titled “Seasonality in Perovskite Solar Cells: Insights from 4 Years of Outdoor Data, the study discusses various environmental impacts that result in large seasonal variations in single-junction cells. While there are several contributions to why winter performance is approximately 30% lower than summer, metastability is the most impactful, though it can be reversed with a week of light-soaking under the sun simulator.
This long-term study, one of the most comprehensive of its kind, provides critical insights into the real-world stability and efficiency of perovskite solar cells. The findings highlight the importance of understanding seasonal influences, such as temperature fluctuations, humidity, and irradiance, which can mask the true performance potential of these devices. By identifying metastability as a dominant but reversible factor in seasonal loss, the research opens the door to improved predictive models and stabilization techniques. These results are expected to accelerate the development of reliable, year-round solar technologies and inform both lab-scale testing protocols and future commercial deployment strategies. Nonetheless, as researchers add more accurate data are needed to understand the real extent of the observed seasonality factor. They also stated that the testing offers promising results showing the potential of this technology to reach the operational lifetime requirements of current commercialized PV technologies.
Again, the paper from PEPPERONI partners met high interest from the PV community as proves the featured article by PV magazine: Four-year outdoor testing shows perovskite solar cells suffer from high seasonality.
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