Very wide-bandgap undoped and Y 2 O 3-doped ZrO 2 nanoparticles were synthesized and their structural, optical, morphological and energy characteristics were investigated. It was found that the bandgap value in ZrO 2 decreases with Y 2 O 3 doping. The developed materials were used for fabrication of nanostructured photoelectrodes for perovskite solar cells (PSCs) with the architecture of glass/FTO/ZrO 2-Y 2 O 3 /CH 3 NH 3 PbI 3 /spiro-MeOTAD/Au. The power conversion efficiency in the PSCs based on ZrO 2-Y 2 O 3 photoelectrodes was significantly higher than that for undoped ZrO 2 photoelectrodes. We have found that nanostructured layers, based on very wide-bandgap materials could efficiently transfer the injected electrons via a hopping transport mechanism.