Perovskite solar cells from Germany are competing with China’s PV technology
Kevin J. Prince and Siddhartha Garud receive HZB 2025 Technology Transfer Award
Photovoltaics is the leading technology in the transition to clean energy. However, traditional silicon-based solar technology has reached its efficiency limit. Therefore, a HZB-team has developed a perovskite-based multi-junction cell architecture. For this, Kevin J. Prince and Siddhartha Garud received the Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin's (HZB) Technology Transfer Prize of 5,000 euros.
Prince sees perovskite as the future: “Perovskite can be the key for production in Europe by dramatically reducing the energy and material cost levels for production, while also offering higher efficiencies unreachable by current mainstream technology.” The goal is to revive PV manufacturing in Germany and Europe.
The project was selected in September 2024 for the German government's German Accelerator U.S. Climate Tech Market Discovery Program. The groundbreaking technology was presented at Climate Week NYC, the Greater Miami Chamber Climate Tech and the Eco Summit in Berlin, among others.
“We have successfully created a proof of concept on a small scale. As a breakthrough technology, it is currently in the research and development phase,” said Garud.
Second place was awarded to the ClearWater project led by Carsten Walter and Prashanth W. Menezes. ClearWater extends the traditional water purification stages—coagulation, aeration (aeration) & sedimentation and filtration & disinfection—to include the process of photocatalysis. The third prize was awarded to Michele Segantini's team for the development of a miniaturised and portable quantum sensor for detecting free radicals in various industrial applications. The potential applications are diverse, for example in foods such as beer and olive oil, but also in batteries, lubricating oil and pharmaceutical products.
From a total of 15 competition entries from HZB research teams, the jury, consisting of members of the HZB Industrial Advisory Board, selected the six final projects, all of which demonstrated a different facet of research. The degree of innovation and market potential were decisive factors in the evaluation of the projects. The public was also allowed to vote to determine the winning projects.
NEPTUNE with nanoscale electrochemical probes (Dr Neha Jha, Dr Martin Munz), an X-ray microscope with photoelectron detection (Prof. Dr Gerd Schneider, Dr Stefan Rehbein) and CLIMAT, magnetotransport induced by constant light (Dr Artem Musiienko) were also nominated.
The prize is awarded every two years to stimulate transfer and encourage researchers to drive their developments towards application.
Prof Maximilian Fleischer, CTO at Siemens Energy Ventures and Chairman of the Industrial Advisory Board, praised the high standard of all the competition entries. “The quality was incredible. Several projects deserved the prize. This emphasises the international appeal of HZB in research and industry.”
Further information:
Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin für Materialien und Energie (HZB)
www.helmholtz-berlin.de
HZB news, 15 October 2025