The Economist recently highlighted a few promising developments in high-efficiency solar photovoltaic (PV) cells, specifically naming Oxford PV’s tandem cell technology, but the article neglected the punchline of what the impact would be (“Solar’s new power,” May 23, 2020). In fact, it could be quite significant. Some years ago, the cost of a solar plant was dominated by the cost of the panel, but now project costs are spread among a variety of categories. In the industry’s current stage, increasing the yearly power generation of a solar plant can be one of the most substantial ways to reduce cost since this affects the full stack of costs. To get the “$/MWh” to go down, boost the “MWh” in the denominator. Furthermore, there are several remaining major opportunities for boosting power generation for solar plants, including perhaps with Oxford PV’s technology.
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