Future Photovoltaics, Volume 7
Issue 7 - Available NOW!
"OPV will probably never outperform inorganic PV cells in performance and lifetime. But their low cost, ease of processing, flexibility and usability under varying lighting conditions will earn OPV a rightful place in the overall PV market. Exercises such as these also illustrate how the improvements of these devices have become a global exercise..." -
Archive Page Teaser:
"OPV will probably never outperform inorganic PV cells in performance and lifetime. But their low cost, ease of processing, flexibility and usability under varying lighting conditions will earn OPV a rightful place in the overall PV market. Exercises such as these also illustrate how the improvements of these devices have become a global exercise..." -
Jef Poortmans, Department Director Solar and Organic Technologies, imec
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Eelco Bergman, VP of Business Development; Cyrium Technologies Inc.
Concentrated photovoltaics (CPV) provides a clear path for the continued cost reduction of solar power generation. The use of concentration enables the manufacturers of solar power plants to reduce the semiconductor content and cost of their systems while maintaining equal or higher power output. One of the key challenges that CPV system designers are faced with is the impact the heat – resulting from the concentration – will have on the performance of the photovoltaic cells.
Mike Conroy, Taylor Hobson
As the interest in PV devices increases, improving the efficiency of the cells becomes increasingly important. Using metrology to study the surface structure and dimensions of critical features of the cells is an important part of this optimization. This is true for both development and production. Modern interferometry is coming to the fore as the ideal approach to metrology for these systems because it is fast, non-contact and gives full 3D information about the surface and features. A recent advance in measurement of thin films has enhanced the usefulness of the technique.[6]
Kristopher Davis, U.S. Photovoltaic Manufacturing Consortium (PVMC)
The U.S. Photovoltaic Manufacturing Consortium (PVMC) is a partnership led by SEMATECH and the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering (CNSE) of the University at Albany. PVMC is an industry-led consortium for cooperative R&D among industry, university and government partners to accelerate the development, commercialization and manufacturing of solar photovoltaic (PV) systems.
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Dean Levi, Principal Scientist, National Center for Photovoltaics; National Renewable Energy Laboratory
One of the biggest challenges in developing metrology for the PV industry is determining the critical issues that need to be addressed through advanced metrology. While each individual PV manufacturer is keenly aware of the problems in their own production process, they are typically loath to discuss these problems in an open forum lest they reveal their weaknesses to their competitors. Hence the challenge for PV researchers and metrology equipment manufacturers is often “What is the question we need to answer?” Unlike the famous game show “Jeopardy,” we are usually not provided with either the answer or the question.
Ernst Richter, AVANCIS
The motivation for photovoltaics is certainly the worldwide effort to minimize the generation of greenhouse gases and the consumption of water during power generation. Currently, thin-film technologies mainly compete with crystalline silicon. Copper indium gallium diselenide (CIGS) cells show that the highest efficiencies at research and efficiency considerably reduces costs. M. Hoehner identified factory productivity, panel efficiency, direct materials, and scale-up as major cost reduction potentials for thin films.[1] These measures comprise improvements of the product and in production. To ensure fast design to volume, efficient technology transfer in parallel startups is required at expanding companies.
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David Jimenez, Wright Williams & Kelly Inc.
When those knowledgeable about the photovoltaics (PV) industry are asked which industry to best mimic for cost and productivity improvements, the majority will say the integrated circuit (IC) industry. But is that really the case?
Steve Roberts, Automation Engineer, Heliovolt Corporation
Obviously, PV manufacturing uses physical processes similar to those used in IC manufacturing. However, it may not be obvious which manufacturing methods and factory systems used in IC are also a good fit for PV manufacturing.
Kun Ho Ahn, Roth & Rau AG
Pursuing grid parity with photovoltaic technology has steadily pushed down the cost of ownership of solar module manufacturing. Silicon thin film has been recognized to play a role in either reducing manufacturing cost or increasing conversion efficiency, which are Si-TF solar modules[1] and Si-HJ solar cell,[2] respectively. Table 1 shows different market introduction of these two solar cell/modules.
