Infra Dig, the IJGlobal podcast series, returns to one of its favourite sectors – technology – for this latest episode to investigate the deployment of perovskite-on-silicon tandem solar cells.

IJGlobal editorial director Angus Leslie Melville chats with David Ward, chief executive of Oxford PV, to hear how his company’s product is set to transform solar panel efficiency.

This podcast – which runs for a little under 30 minutes – focuses entirely on a cutting edge company working to enhance solar power, providing a fascinating insight into technological advancements.

This latest episode can be accessed on Spotify (embedded above) as well as through Apple Podcasts and the Amazon service. It is also hosted across a slew of other platforms and is open access on all of them.

David (pictured right) says: “The history of PV has primarily been around silicon. Most people are used to a silicon solar panel. You see them on rooves everywhere and in fields – and that is the traditional technology.

“Silicon has been a really good solar material for a long time, but it is bumping up against its physics… which is – you cannot make it any efficient in the real world than effectively it is today. It’s fractions of a percent efficiency

“The only way to make a more efficient solar cell is to – basically – change the way you do the collection of sunlight. You take silicon and you collect so much sunlight, so much energy, so much efficiency of that sun.

“And then what we are doing is adding another material – a 2-part solar cell or a tandem – which absorbs a different part of sunlight, allowing you capture much more of the sun’s energy overall… in a way that you just can’t do with the existing panels.

“We use silicon and then we add on top of that.”

Tune in for a fascinating episode on technology in the renewables sector.