From Lab to Market: A Key Perspective on Perovskite PV Commercialisation
A new Perspective article, “Taking perovskite photovoltaics from promise to product,” has been published in Nature Reviews Clean Technology. The paper is led by TRANSPIRE coordinator Anurag Krishna (corresponding author) and first-authored by Amit Kumar Harit, with co-authors Zi-Fan He, Yinghuan Kuang, Tamara Merckx, Aranzazu Aguirre and Tom Aernouts at EnergyVille / imec, together with Manya Li, Ke Xiao, Xi Wang, Yi Hou, Buyi Yan and Hairen Tan.
The article maps what stands between today’s record perovskite solar cells and a commercially viable product — the central question driving TRANSPIRE’s research.
Published on 26 May 2026, the Perspective looks past laboratory efficiency to map the full commercialisation pathway for perovskite and perovskite–silicon tandem PV. It recasts the remaining challenge as a product-centred problem spanning materials, manufacturing, certification, policy and market design, rather than a question of cell performance alone.
“Perovskite photovoltaics are no longer constrained primarily by efficiency.”
— Taking perovskite photovoltaics from promise to product
A core argument concerns a plateau effect: beyond a certain laboratory efficiency, further percentage points deliver little practical value unless matched by gains in production yield, operational lifetime and factory-level economics. Drawing on early pilot-line experience and on parallels with the OLED industry, the authors set out what it takes to turn high-efficiency devices into bankable products.
What the Perspective argues
- The bottleneck is no longer cell efficiency, but joining materials, manufacturing, standards and finance into one product and value chain.
- Yield, throughput and gigawatt-scale factory economics must be designed in from the start, with bankability and warranty-grade reliability data guiding funding.
- Single-junction modules suit niches such as building-integrated PV and agrivoltaics; tandems are the leading path to mass-market power.
These are the challenges TRANSPIRE was built to address. The project develops and scales bifacial perovskite and perovskite–silicon tandem modules, taking the technology from laboratory proof (TRL-4) toward pilot-line readiness (TRL-6/7) and a European spin-off. Its emphasis on industrial reliability, manufacturability and a roughly 50% lower carbon footprint maps directly onto the design variables the Perspective identifies as decisive.
The Perspective also stresses that regional industrial strategy — from China’s vertically integrated supply chains to the more fragmented ecosystems of Europe and the United States — will shape where perovskite PV first reaches meaningful scale. This is precisely the gap TRANSPIRE targets: an imec-led effort to prove the performance, reliability and manufacturability needed for a sovereign European value chain, and ultimately a spin-off that can build next-generation solar in Europe.
This Perspective draws in part on research carried out within TRANSPIRE, funded by the European Union under the European Innovation Council (Grant Agreement No 101291137).