Conversion efficiency is a key metric because it directly impacts a system's cost of energy — thus these recent advancements in perovskite ultimately translate into expanding the potential addressable end markets for DSC, bolstering its flexibility and customization capabilities with vastly improved energy output. First and foremost this means building-integrated PV (BIPV), integrated into roofs or architectural glass, and even into the walls, in products such as tiles, facades and shingles. If perovskite-based DSC solar cells can enter commercial production even at half their current efficiency (say at 10 percent or even the high-teens) that's a very viable commercial product that can compete favorably against other solar energy technologies, with added benefits of simplicity and cost, plus architectural flexibility and aesthetics — light weight, robust, and semitransparent/light-transmissive. These BIPV applications also mean large panels, a far greater target market for DSC materials than, say, previous sectors of solar chargers on electronic products. And a higher-efficiency BIPV product can address markets with sub-optimal lighting conditions, from Europe to North America to Northeast Asia.

Alongside the DSC/perovskite technology development progress, NanoMarkets also expects to see DSC firms ramping up their strategies and partnerships to get their products to the end market. Oxford PV, for example, eyeing architectural glass on large commercial developments, claims it will soon issue its first license to a glass manufacturer, with revenues ramping up in 2016. Dyesol, leveraging the EPFL technology for DSCs involving steel and glass, is shooting for mass production techniques for solid-state DSCs in the next three to four years.

Generally speaking, NanoMarkets sees DSC-enabled BIPV applications likely inching closer to mass production levels toward the end of the decade, with the first commercial production of DSC modules coming within a five-year window from leading manufacturers such as Dyseol and 3GSolar. BIPV glass, the current hot-spot for DSC application, has channeled many investments and pilot efforts, particularly in Europe but with backing from Asian partners. Our latest analysis suggests the market for DSC-enabled BIPV glass will surge from just $1.3 million to more than $256 million in 2021.

For DSC used in roofing and siding applications, the use of liquid electrolyte has been a major disadvantage because of stringent sealing requirements to offset their sensitivity to moisture and air. Solid electrolytes — perovskites would fall into this category — could help improve this situation, especially if their efficiencies are vastly improved. Dyesol has disclosed plans to introduce solid-state DSCs for steel substrates within the next three years. NanoMarkets acknowledges uncertainty about overall industry commitment to pursuing commercial-production of DSC-integrated materials for roofs, given the increased ubiquity of cheaper silicon-based rooftop panels. Nevertheless, by the end of this decade we see this as another viable market for DSC, rising from nearly $6 million in 2016 to $225 million by 2021.