Advent Solar touts high cell efficiencies on mono, multi and UMG solar cells

PV module manufacturer turned intellectual property (IP) provider Advent Solar, has released details of multi-crystalline, mono-crystalline and UMG solar cell conversion efficiencies, using its Emitter-Wrap Through (EWT) back-contact developed technology, which is part of the Ventura solar architecture. The results were said to have been validated via round robin tests at Fraunhofer, NREL and Sandia Labs.

Advent Solar claims its has reached 18.2% efficiencies on mainstream 156mm mono-silicon wafers; 17.2% on 156mm multi-crystalline wafers; and 16.56% on 156mm UMG wafers.

“Today, we achieved a significant milestone by developing a scalable manufacturing process that can produce high-efficiency solar cells using mono-crystalline, multi-crystalline and low-cost UMG silicon wafers,” commented Fares Bagh, Vice President of Engineering and Technology for Advent Solar. “This allows us to provide manufacturers with best-in-class capabilities and the flexibility they need to offer differentiation across a broad span of market needs."

"The solar industry today is debating which technology will dominate in the long term: silicon PV or thin film," said Peter Green, president and CEO of Advent Solar. "Currently, silicon PV still dominates the market, although thin film has made significant gains. The market, however, will need both technologies to span the range of solar applications from residential rooftops to field-based systems. The latest advancement in Ventura Technology with the lowest-cost silicon type - UMG, provides a capability that bridges the gap between thin-film costs and silicon PV efficiencies by hitting the industry target of $1/watt at the cell level with excellent performance."

The cells are said to be designed for use with Monolithic Module Assembly (MMA), a fully-automated module assembly process.