South Korea’s solar power company Hanwha Q Cells Corp. has been ramping up its research and development on perovskite, a material emerging as the future solar cell for its high efficiency and cheap manufacturing cost, to stay ahead in the global solar cell market.

According to industry sources on Wednesday, Hanwha Q Cells recently completed recruitment of PhD level experts for its perovskite R&D team set up at its research center in Pangyo, Gyeonggi Province. The company began organizing the team about a year ago and plans to continue to strengthen investment in the perovskite studies, an official from the company said.

Perovskite is becoming the fastest advancing material for photovoltaic, or solar, cells thanks to its desirable properties such as outstanding light absorption and low manufacturing cost. Solar cell efficiency using this technology surged to 24 percent in 2019, in just a decade since 2009 when it first grabbed attention from the academic world. It was a remarkable development considering that it took 60 years for silicon solar cells to achieve the current 25 percent efficiency.

The material is emerging as the next-generation solar cell material due to its commercial advantage. The materials are widely available and cheaper to secure than conventional silicon. In addition, it doesn’t require a highly-expensive lab with vacuum facility. Experts estimate the perovskite solar cell would be priced at just a third or eighth of silicon solar cells if it is successfully commercialized.

Due to its technological and commercial potential, many companies and research institutes around the world are stepping up their studies on perovskite. “The current competition would reshape the future solar cell market,” an industry source said.

By bolstering its R&D capability for perovskite, Hanwha Q Cells and Hanwha Q Cells & Advanced Materials Corp. aim to widen the technology gap with their peers. They are currently the largest solar cell producer in the world by rolling out 8.1GW solar cells in 2018.

The brisk solar business contributed to strong earnings of its parent company Hanwha Chemical. Hanwha Chemical announced in a regulatory filing on Wednesday that it recorded 152.5 billion won ($130.2 million) in operating profit in the third quarter ended September this year, up 56.3 percent from a quarter ago and 62.6 percent from a year ago. Sales rose 2.8 percent on quarter and 5.6 percent on year to 2.44 trillion won. Its operating profit was 42 percent higher than market consensus, thanks to the rising demand for solar cells in the U.S. and Europe.

Its bottom line swung to profit from year ago to 113.4 billion won, more than fourfold from a quarter ago.

By Won Ho-sup, Chung Seok-hwan and Choi Mira

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