A major Asian solar cell manufacturer has placed an order for multiple hydrogen annealing furnaces from BTU International after the customer experienced a significant increase in absolute cell efficiency using the technology especially on Class B cells during an evaluation period.
“Because of the hydrogen annealing process, this customer now is able to extract value from solar cells that otherwise had inferior cell efficiency,” said David Wong, Ph.D., BTU International’s chief solar scientist. “Working closely with our process engineers in Shanghai, our customer saw a significant increase in absolute cell efficiency after hydrogen annealing, especially on Class B cells. The results were so consistent that multiple units were ordered.”
BTU noted that it has more than 125 hydrogen furnaces in operation in the semiconductor, nuclear and other industries.
