Economically Sustainable Growth Of Small-Scale Perovskite Manufacturing In Alternative Pv Markets

The substantial capital expense of PV manufacturing has made it difficult for new technologies and companies to enter the market and compete on price with incumbents manufacturing modules at massive scale. We present a technoeconomic model that evaluates the start-up phase of a new PV manufacturing company by looking at the following question how do you get a new solar cell technology to flourish under the current challenging market conditions? A cost-model for a small-scale roll-to-roll perovskite photovoltaic manufacturing line capable of producing 3.6 MW/year is developed and used to establish the expected low and high bounds on the production cost for flexible modules of $86/m(2) and $231/m(2), respectively. We use these numbers to calculate economically sustainable annual growth rates for the company obtaining a wide range of possible values, depending on selling price and cost of manufacturing. We show that to sustainably grow a U.S.-based perovskite manufacturing company from 3.6 MW/year to over 100 MW/year in under 10 years requires selling products at an operating margin over 100%, a level that might be achievable in certain niche markets like the Internet of Things. The conclusion of this study extends to other materials systems with similar low-capex cost structures.