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The conversion of solar energy into electricity via the photovoltaic (PV) effect has been rapidly developing in the last decades due to its potential for transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy based economies. In particular, the advances in PV technology and on the economy of scale permitted to reduce the cost of the energy produced with solar cells down to the energy cost of conventional fossil fuel. Thus, PV will play an important role to address the biggest challenges of our planet including global warming, climate change and air pollution. In this paper, we will introduce the photovoltaic technology recalling the working principle of the photovoltaic conversion and describing the different PV available on the market and under development. In the last section, we will focus more on the emerging technology of the halide perovskite, which is the research subject of the authors.