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Although perovskite (PVK) and bifacial solar cell technologies have gained a rapid emergence in recent years, integration of PVK with low-cost high-efficiency subcell in a bifacial tandem structure is still an area of huge interest. In this work, the potential of FeSi2 thin film solar cell to be used as bottom subcell in a PVK based bifacial tandem cell structure is explored. We use self-consistent electrical-optical model to investigate various terminal topologies of PVK/FeSi2 bifacial tandem solar cell. In particular, we compare a novel three terminal four junction (3T-4J) tandem configuration termed as twin (or double) tandem cell with conventional monolithic two terminal (2T) and mechanically stacked four terminal (4T) bifacial tandem structures having two junction (2J) configuration. We show that the optimal thickness of PVK in 2T-2J tandem configuration is strongly dependent upon magnitude of albedo due to the current-matching constraint between the subcells, whereas both 4T-2J and 3T-4J tandem cells can perform optimally for a broad range of albedo. At optimal cell design, all tandem structures could exhibit efficiency >27.5% at average Earth albedo of ∼30%. Lastly, the results presented in this work provide a complete design space for optimal cell operations and would be beneficial for the development of low-cost high-efficiency PVK based bifacial tandem solar cell.

The output energy produced by the photovoltaic system strongly depends upon the amount of solar radiation harvested by the photovoltaic panels. Varying the tilt of photovoltaic panels at the optimal angle and/or cleaning the photovoltaic panels at regular intervals are some of the techniques that could enhance the photovoltaic system performance albeit at the cost of increased labor and water budget. Here, we explore a farm-level study to investigate the effect of different tilt angle adjustment schedules on the performance of conventional north/south ([Formula: see text]) tilted monofacial photovoltaic farms. We further compare the performance of optimally tilted [Formula: see text] photovoltaic farms with that of east/west ([Formula: see text]) faced vertical bifacial photovoltaic farms for various dry periods for Lahore, Pakistan. We show that for a dry period of one month, the performance of [Formula: see text] tilted farm is decreased by [Formula: see text]40 kWh/m[Formula: see text] as compared to that for [Formula: see text] farm that exhibits a performance degradation of [Formula: see text]3 kWh/m[Formula: see text]. Further, [Formula: see text] farm performs better than [Formula: see text] vertical farm if the cleaning is performed on (or before) fortnightly basis. Further, if cleaning is delayed for one month, then [Formula: see text] vertical farm performs better than [Formula: see text] tilted farm. The results presented in this work are beneficial for the development of [Formula: see text] faced vertical bifacial farm in dusty climates and regions with scarce water supply.

Indoor photovoltaics (IPV) has recently emerged as a sustainable and reliable energy technology to power rapidly growing Internet of Things (IoTs). Among various solar cell technologies, emerging perovskite solar cells (PSCs) have gained great interests for IPV; owing to their unique optoelectronic properties such as bandgap tunability to efficiently harvest the indoor light spectrum. The choice of hole selective layer (HTL) is critical for efficient PSCs, particularly in IPV applications to reduce the parasitic absorption losses in indoor light spectrum. Here, we explore the potential of CuSCN to be used as an HTL for PSCs in IPV applications. We show that CuSCN based PSC exhibits remarkable power conversion efficiency ($\eta$) as compared to PSCs using conventional PEDOT:PSS as HTL. We explore the effects of wavelengths of incident photons ($\lambda$) and various design parameters of PSC for optimal cell operations.