Perovskite and CIGS Solar Cells for Energy Harvesting: Design, Simulation and Comparison

In the context of finding a clean and renewable alternative to fossil fuels, able to work both in high and low light intensity conditions, we designed, simulated, and compared in this paper two different types of thin-film solar cells, one based on the perovskite material and the other one with copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS). Although in literature there are lots of research attempts that experimentally developed and tested both perovskite and CIGS solar cells, our paper highlights the possibility of increasing even further the value of the efficiency and also to find new uses in energy harvesting applications. We used the software gpvdm (now called OghmaNano) to obtain the current intensity - voltage (I-V) characteristics and the most important electrical and optical parameters of the cells, that enabled us to perform a comparison between the two proposed solar cells, in two different light intensity conditions: at 1 sun (corresponding to outdoor applications) and at LED (light emitting diode) light intensity (corresponding to indoor conditions). From this comparison, conclusions can be drawn for choosing a better design for energy harvesting applications.