scottwharton

@gnievchenko @zephyr_z9 We've actually cracked the code with a module that's over 29% and showing less than 1% degradation per year. So your info is broadly correct but not for some players like @TandemPV that have jumped ahead

@zephyr_z9 I've been hearing about perovskite cells since the day I started my career. 9 years later and still none have cracked the durability issue. Tandem cells don't solve it, merely add a less-risky silicon layer. Hugely skeptical, but hopeful for breakthrough

Lots of interest in perovskite solar cells after Elon's team visited Chinese solar companies. Let me provide a quick overview of what's happening in the Chinese perovskite ecosystem. Pervoskite is still mostly in R&D phase but some megawatt-class pilot lines have been announced. LONGi achieved a power conversion efficiency of 34.85% for a two-terminal tandem perovskite solar cell in April 2025. Their flexible perovskite-silicon tandem also achieved 33.35% efficiency. JinkoSolar achieved 34.76% efficiency for a perovskite-silicon tandem cell based on TOPCon n-type wafers in December 2025. Jinko is working with XtalPi (interesting company) for Perovskite R&D. TrinaSolar achieved 32.6% efficiency for perovskite tandem solar cells. Tongwei's perovskite R&D team achieved 31.58% conversion efficiency for tandem cells in August 2025. Risen Energy achieved 30.99% efficiency with HJT-perovskite tandem solar cells. Deployment Huaneng Group announced a 5MW demonstration project in Qinghai in August 2025. 4 pureplay pervoskite startups were involved GCL, Microquanta, UtmoLight, and Renshine Solar. Module costs were around CNY 0.8/W in 2025, with a target to reduce them below CNY 0.6/W by 2026.

@BellikOzan @zephyr_z9 less than 1 gram of perovskite per m2 - which is one of the reasons why it's so inexpensive and exciting

@zephyr_z9 How many grams per m2?

@teortaxesTex @zephyr_z9 you do need to protect perovskites from water and air but that's pretty standard stuff to do now. In space, you can put perovskites on a very thin and light glass coating that is a standard manufacturing process and pretty durable

@zephyr_z9 The problem as I understand it is that on Earth they degrade from water vapor, and in space from gas loss, so in any case you need a glass coating, which interferes with "flexible" idea. Is that correct?

@zephyr_z9 Why would @elonmusk and @Tesla shop for solar and perovskite tech in China when the world's leading perovskite solar maker (@TandemPV) is right around the corner in Fremont, CA?!?

@Noahpinion amen and duh. funny how so many haters just don't like the facts. what, too much clean and cheap energy is bad for us?

Solar+batteries is just going to win

@johnrobb I'm not sure I agree with this. There's so much that's happening in AI where the benefits are trickling down. For example, using Gemini or ChatGPT for free by the whole world is a huge improvement and consumer surplus. And broadly wages are rising fast

What really hit me about the rise of the cosmopolitan elite (the top 10% by income), and their spending power (50% of all consumer spending and growing), is that, at least in new technologies, the mass market is dead. Looked at this way, the iPhone, may be the last major tech product built for the global middle. For example. Tesla, a car company more valuable than all of the major car companies combined, builds autonomous cars for the top 10%. Autonomous cars are a productivity enhancer and stress reducer. It gives you back your commute time (and all other driving, particularly in congested cities) and eliminates the anxiety it produces (improving health). The model 3 (really more of an autonomous taxi prototype) expanded that into the top 20% but that's as far as an owned product goes. The rest of us, the 90%, will (eventually) get autonomy in the form of taxis. Services. The same will likely be true with everything built with AI (from virtual workers to robotics). The mass gets AI slop. The top 10% get expensive autonomous AIs that can do actual work reliably. In sum, many of the core assumptions we have about the market, the direction of technological development, and our social dynamics have changed. I'll add more to the X subscription thread that started this. Also, here's the report that kicked off this line of thinking:

@fotsch1 @JessePeltan Because it’s cheaper to have utilities deploy at scale and lower costs vs a rooftop. And Arizona is actually booming in solar deployments.

If Solar is SO great, then why do VERY few people have it in AZ, where the sun is as abundant as any state in the US? Answer: no subsidies here Conclusion: more engineering work to do Two things can be true: 1) sun is most abundant energy source 2) we have not figured out how to tap it viably/economically Find some engineers and get to work. Posting does literally nothing.

Who is running this account? Embarrassing. U.S. generation is finally growing after decades of stagnation. Nuclear hasn’t kept up, while wind and solar have continued to grow faster than demand. (mostly solar now) There’s NO WAY that the DOE doesn’t know this.

@MarietteWharton Isn't everyone hanging out with their dog in their hyperbaric oxygen chamber for Memorial Day?

hanging in my hyperbaric oxygen chamber with my dog #chillaxin

@PeterDiamandis Because it's much cheaper to put into a solar farm vs. on a roof. In 2024, 82% of all solar deployed in the U.S. was utility-scale

Looking out the window of my plane, what I see is millions of rooftops WITHOUT SOLAR. Why isn’t every rooftop, sucking down photons from the sun?

Another cool award for Tandem PV! Tandem PV Named Among World's Top GreenTech Companies of 2025 by TIME Magazine - goo.gl/alerts/9bn17c #GoogleAlerts

This was an incredibly fun podcast to do. Dan is a friend, fellow entrepreneur, and an excellent interviewer. Listen to us spend ~30min on the future of solar, my career arc, + some lessons learned around mgmt and leadership. @DanTurchin #solar #logitech #videoconferencing

I'm thrilled to be heading to CLEANPOWER 2025 in Phoenix, AZ from May 19-22. Let me know if you'll be there! app.ingo.me/q/0d8qm #CLEANPOWER25

@TomSteyer “on a monthly rate in December, China was 80% electric and plugin car new sales”. #blooombergnef #solar #EVs

@Matt_Pinner True

Apparently in Sweden, “opex” is pronounced “oopx”. #cute

“The Tesla Mindset: anything is possible”. #gbb24 #mckinsey

@joeljean9 @SwiftSolarPV @eni @Fontinalis_FP @Stanford @goodgrowthvc @BlueScopeAus @TobaCapital @climatecap @jamesfickel Congratulations, Joel, and to the entire @SwiftSolarPV team! It's a great day for you and perovskites. I look forward to seeing what you guys will do with the additional funding.

1/ Today we’re announcing @SwiftSolarPV’s Series A! We raised $27M led by @eni Next and @Fontinalis_FP, with participation from a diverse group of new and existing investors @Stanford, @goodgrowthvc, @BlueScopeAus, @TobaCapital, @climatecap, and @jamesfickel, along with amazing founders like @sytses and @FEhrsam.

Congrats to the entire @TandemPV team for this impressive win, and thank you, DOE / @ENERGY, for your continued support to bring perovskites to market! pv-magazine.com/2024/06/04/per…

I’m so disappointed with @Hertz I’m presidents club and they can’t figure out how to add my wife as a driver. My flight is delayed so she is getting there first. Oh well I guess I’ll have to use @Enterprise What a customer service fail.

Hello American independents, republicans, undecided, patriots. Is this what you want for your country? I don’t care how much you don’t like President Biden. He’s not promising bloodshed if he loses.