How Solar Changed in 2025 (And What’s Next)

I called 2024 the year of perovskites. We got our first commercial shipments and some record-breaking efficiencies. But 2025? This was the year perovskites went from “interesting lab tech” to “you can actually buy these.” Oxford PV shipped the first commercial batch to a US solar farm.¹² California startups landed major infrastructure deals.³ And Chinese manufacturers started licensing the technology for mass production.⁴

More importantly, researchers solved problems that have plagued perovskites for years. We got self-healing materials that repair damage from heat and moisture.⁵ Cooling systems that boost efficiency by over 12%.⁶ And manufacturing techniques that broke the 34% efficiency barrier, which shatters silicon’s theoretical 30% limit.⁷

So let’s recap what actually happened this past year, what it means for solar’s future, and what breakthroughs to watch for in 2026.

Solar is already one of the cheapest ways to generate electricity,⁸ but perovskites could push that advantage even further. 2025 was the year they started proving it in the real world.

As a super quick refresher: perovskites are crystal materials that can push solar efficiency beyond silicon’s theoretical 30% limit.⁹ They’re cheaper to manufacture and can stack with silicon to create “tandem” panels.¹⁰ The problem has always been durability because they degrade when exposed to heat, moisture, and oxygen. That’s what makes 2025’s breakthroughs so significant.

Commercially Available Advances

Oxford PV Release

Perovskite’s weaknesses haven’t stopped manufacturers from starting to commercialize panels. In September 2024, Oxford PV announced the delivery of its first batch of about 100 kW of perovskite-silicon tandem cells to a utility-scale customer in the U.S.¹¹¹ According to the company, this was the first deployment of its kind in the world.²

Perovskite Production in 2025

Since then, Oxford PV entered a patent licensing agreement with Chinese PV manufacturer Trinasolar earlier this year, enabling them to manufacture and sell its perovskite panels. In the words of CEO David Ward, it’s “a milestone in our mission to make perovskite PV mainstream.”⁴

Meanwhile, over in the U.S., perovskite commercialization has been steadily climbing. It seems fitting that California, the state with “Eureka” as its motto, is home to so many major players. Companies like Tandem PV, Swift Solar, and Caelux had some pretty sunny summers. In June, Swift Solar announced its partnership with the American Tower Corporation, which develops communications infrastructure. As CEO and co-founder Joel Jean pointed out, this collaboration is notable because it’s not only an example of active commercialization, but also a real world application of perovskite tandem cells outside of utility-scale solar.³

In July, Caelux sent out its first shipment of its “Active Glass” product to an unnamed solar manufacturer. Now, you might be like me and wondering: why is it that some of these examples of customers buying perovskite tech remain undisclosed? I can’t know for certain, but I can say from my own experience that it’s not unusual for the client half of a tech partnership to avoid publicity. This has been the case for companies that I’ve covered right on this channel.

What we do know about Active Glass, though, is interesting. Caelux takes a simplified approach to perovskite PV by stripping it down to the bare essentials. The company doesn’t produce perovskite tandem cells; instead, it developed a perovskite-coated glass that takes the place of the front glass of your typical panel. According to Caelux, the Active Glass can be integrated into existing manufacturing processes. Attaching its perovskite powerups to panels is just a matter of using pre-installed charge collection tape, allowing module-makers to create a hybrid, tandem model that’s at least 6% more efficient.¹²

That same month, Tandem PV received a $4 million grant from the California Energy Commission to scale up its prototypes and speed up commercialization.¹³ CEO Scott Wharton said the plan is to begin offering utility-scale customers tandem panels in 2026.¹²

That covers the business side of perovskite production, but let’s shine some light on the lab work that’s powering improvements on the way.

Improvements on the Way

Iceberg Pyramids

You might have heard of a TV or video game “iceberg,” but what about an iceberg pyramid? Pyramids are already a common feature of silicon-based PV cells. Now, these are no pharaoh’s tomb. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. The pyramids that pattern silicon cells are on the micrometer or even nanometer scale. For context, a human hair can be anywhere from roughly 17 to 181 micrometers in diameter.¹⁴ Just imagine one of those layered studded or spikey belts you might have seen around your middle school…or around your middle schooler’s waist…but much, much smaller.

Turns out that these pyramids’ geometry makes them handy for both preventing reflections and trapping light.¹⁵¹⁶¹⁷ As a result, using textured silicon surfaces in perovskite-silicon tandem cells can amplify conversion efficiency….by a lot. That’s the technique that the Chinese PV manufacturing giant, LONGi, used in its two-terminal crystalline silicon-perovskite tandem solar cell that broke the world record this year. It boasts a conversion efficiency of 34.85%. Again, that’s beating the theoretical upper limit of silicon solar cells at around 30%.⁷⁹¹⁸¹⁹

What does any of this have to do with icebergs? Well, there’s a problem. These types of textured silicon substrates, specifically those in the sub-micron range, are powerful but not practical. You can’t use standard manufacturing methods to produce them, which puts a serious damper on their economic pull. So, what do you do?¹⁶

In August, researchers from Zhejiang University in China answered that question by proposing an alternative: industrially textured silicon (ITS) with micron-sized pyramids. The industrial stuff is both already compatible with existing manufacturing processes and capable of enhancing light trapping. Normally, ITS could further complicate adding the perovskite layer to a tandem cell. The research team avoided these issues by filling up the valleys formed by the pyramid structure with silica. And with those valleys filled, the pyramids transform into…icebergs, buried beneath a more evenly distributed perovskite layer. With the perovskites blanketing the lower components like a duvet on top of your bedsheets. The researchers managed to reach an efficiency of 33.15%, which they claim is “the highest reported to date” for tandem cells of this type.¹⁶ Here’s hoping these benefits are just the tip of the iceberg.

Self-healing Solar

Like I said before, perovskites tend to be more fragile than their silicon counterparts. But what if we could boost their resilience and their efficiency with…a spa treatment?

In June, we did a little roundup of recent advancements in self-healing solar. One of these was the result of an international collaboration between the City University of Hong Kong, the University of Oxford, and Monash University over in Australia. They created a “self-healing” agent for perovskite panels. It not only helps to buff out their natural imperfections, but continuously reactivates as the cells are exposed to heat and moisture over time. In other words, it’s a perovskite healing factor.²⁰⁵

What’s the science behind this magic material? It’s a type of passivator … basically a coating that shields a product from degradation. Think of it like a step in a solar skincare routine. A passivator patches up defects on the surface of a panel the same way moisturizer smooths away dryness and prevents cracking. This one is unique because it’s a “living” passivator. When it comes into contact with water and heat, it continuously releases compounds that dynamically heal perovskites over time.²⁰⁵

This kind of perpetual patchworking might be limited to the lab right now, but this is not the only path to self-healing solar. Researchers at the University of Sydney in Australia and the RIKEN Center for Sustainable Resource Science in Japan are also hard at work preparing their own materials.²¹ The former team is using the heat treatment known as annealing in their quest to bring perovskites to space, and the latter is developing a fluorescent copolymer that can tank the damage caused by chemical solutions all across the pH scale.²²

Hydrogel

So, there’s potentially a burgeoning solar skincare industry out there. But…what if PV panels had another thing in common with human skin? What if PV panels…could sweat?

Ok, ok. I know what you might be thinking: why would you ever want this? It’s simple. Humans sweat as a means of evaporative cooling — a type of passive cooling that doesn’t require any outside intervention. And it’s incredibly effective. Just through sweating alone, a healthy adult can dissipate about 1,000 watts’ worth of heat.²³²⁴

This is appealing to solar manufacturers because even though it’s their job to bake in the sun, there’s only so much heat that PV panels can take. The higher the temperature rises, the lower their efficiency drops. For each additional degree Celsius (or 1.8 F) there’s about a 0.5% decrease in efficiency. When panels can reach temperatures as scorching as 65 C (149 F), you can imagine how quickly the problem can escalate.²⁵

So how do you teach a PV panel to sweat? Turns out that a dab will do ya…a dab of hydrogel, that is. Hydrogels are networks of polymers that love water. They’re used in industries far and wide, from agriculture to medicine to food.²⁶ By applying this squishy, porous material to the back of a PV panel, you can take advantage of its ability to absorb water during the night and release it over the course of the day. That’s exactly what research teams from Thailand’s Vidyasirimedhi Institute of Science and Technology (VISTEC) and Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) have been up to.

In February, VISTEC revealed the results of its hydrogel testing: a temperature drop of 23 C (or 73 F), which equated to a 12.3% gain in efficiency. Even better, VISTEC’s gel keeps it light, weighing just 11 pounds per square meter. That’s significantly less in comparison with other options like phase change materials.²⁷

Just a few months later, KAUST reported that its hydrogel reduced temperatures by an average of 12.5 C (22.5 F), improving efficiency by about 12.2%. KAUST’s gel stands out…er, sticks out…because it can easily attach to already existing solar panels as opposed to replacing whole arrays. How’s that for escaping sticker shock?⁶²⁸

What’s on the Horizon

So far we’ve discussed how researchers are iterating on solar tech in a lab setting. How about we take a peek at some of the more speculative work. What might be still to come?

Quantum Dots

When I say the phrase “quantum dot,” what comes to mind? Gum drops that are simultaneously eaten and uneaten? A space opera? How about your TV?

You may already be familiar with quantum dots as the “Q” in “QLED.” For years, manufacturers have capitalized on quantum dots luminescence to achieve brighter, more vivid displays.²⁹³⁰ They’re also used in lasers, sensors, batteries, and even medical imaging.³¹

But what are they? A quantum dot is a form of nanomaterial; they’re crystalline, semiconducting particles, and they effectively work as artificial atoms…and very fluorescent ones at that.³¹ Minor differences in diameter produce major differences in color, with the smallest ones being the bluest and the largest ones being the reddest.³² “Large” is relative, here, though…because we’re talking about material in the order of a couple nanometers, or about 10,000 times thinner than a human hair.³⁰

Because these dots are so teeny-tiny, they’re limited in how their electrons can move, so they can only produce specific wavelengths of light. To be specific, they’re subject to what’s known as quantum confinement. What this means for us humans is that we can directly control the colors that quantum dots emit by modifying their size.³²

Quantum dots glowing with various colors in vials. Courtesy of UbiQD, Inc.

That explains quantum dots’ relevance to consumer electronics, but what does this have to do with solar? A lot, actually. In your average solar cell, when a photon sent our way by the sun comes into contact with its components, there’s a chance it’ll transfer its energy to an electron, creating an exciton: an electron-hole pair. If all goes well, the electron will pass through the electrode to produce a current. But you only get one exciton per photon.³³

Quantum dots, on the other hand, are capable of multiple exciton generation, so they can get more bang for their buck with more than one exciton per photon. Thanks to this sort of BOGO effect, quantum dots could theoretically double a panel’s conversion efficiency. The U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory has found that quantum dot solar cells could potentially reach efficiencies as high as 66%.³³³² A big thing in a small, glowing package.

Even though quantum dots’ impacts are still mostly theoretical, their commercial presence is growing. In July, Arizona-based solar company First Solar, which you might remember from a previous video of ours, announced its partnership with quantum dot specialist UbiQD, situated next door in New Mexico. Consequently, First Solar will be working to incorporate Ubi’s quantum dots into its thin film bifacial panels.³⁰³⁴

Perovskite-graphene

Capping off the end of the year comes one last bit of perovskite tech. In December, we talked about how researchers are teaming up perovskites with graphene to create PV panels enhanced by both. Graphene works well to cancel out perovskites’ weaknesses: it’s strong yet light, a great conductor, and most importantly, robust and water-resistant.³⁵ You know, the exact two traits perovskites aren’t known for. That’s why perovskite and graphene could be a match made in heaven…if we can figure out the manufacturing.

So far, First Graphene, Halocell Energy, and the Queensland University of Technology have been working together to develop perovskite-graphene cells. In September, First Graphene announced that its “PureGRAPH” product, a graphene powder additive, doubled the efficiency of Halocell’s perovskite panels up to 30.6% while cutting down production costs by a whopping 80%.³⁶³⁷

How could that be possible? First Graphene claims it’s because its graphene formula is compatible with roll-to-roll manufacturing, which is the cheapest way to produce perovskite panels. By using this approach, expensive materials like gold and silver are no longer needed. When combined with perovskites’ economic benefits, you end up with a very affordable panel.³⁶ Or at least that’s the idea.

PSC Material Layers

That isn’t the only collaboration working to make perovskite-graphene a reality. Another spans three countries: GraphEnergyTech (GET) operating out of Switzerland, the Taiwanese Perovskite Solar Corp (TPSC) and the University of Cambridge in England. Together, they form GETPSC. I wonder if that’s meant to be interpreted as “get perovskite solar cells”?

Anyway, like the Australian teams, a major focus of GETPSC’s efforts is bringing down costs by using graphene. As I mentioned before, silver is expensive; it’s also subject to degradation when incorporated into perovskite components. GETPSC is experimenting with using graphene in place of silver for the electrodes in PV cells, potentially solving two problems: cost and durability. As it stands, their graphene material can be integrated into multiple existing manufacturing methods, including screen printing, doctor blading, and slot die coating processes.³⁸

Kesterite

We’ve spent a lot of time talking about perovskites so far, but there is an upcoming rival. Meet kesterite, a crystalline special blend of four or five easy-to-acquire metals: copper, zinc, tin, and, depending on the method, sulfur or selenium or both. Kesterite brings several benefits to the table: abundance, stability, high efficiency, and low cost.³⁹ But that deserves it’s own video, which I’m working on and it should be out in a few weeks. Stay tuned for that one.

So there you have it. Just in 2025 alone, perovskites have benefited from quite a few new advances that help bridge some of their inherent weaknesses, from self-healing properties to passive cooling systems.