The groundbreaking ceremony for construction on the first phase of the perovskite photovoltaic power station was held in Qujiang district, Quzhou, East China's Zhejiang province, on Feb 15.

Yang Yang, professor of the College of Optical Science and Engineering of Zhejiang University, said it will be the world's first ground power station based on perovskite solar cells, indicating that most transformative new photovoltaic technology has begun to enter the mainstream photovoltaic market.

Perovskite solar cells are a kind of solar cell that uses organic-inorganic hybrid perovskite metal halide as light-absorbing semiconductor material and belongs to the third generation of solar cell technology.

Compared with crystal silicon solar cells, perovskite solar cells boast higher photoelectric conversion efficiency, lower costs, and an environmentally-friendly and low-carbon preparation process.

Perovskite cells are rich in raw materials, and the material costs just 5 percent of what traditional photovoltaic cells do. After large-scale application, the cost of power generation is expected to drop to about half of what crystalline silicon cells allow for.