Passivated emitter rear contact (PERC) production is forecast to exceed 15GW in 2017, accounting for more than 20% of all p-type solar cells produced in the year. PERC has become the first major application for lasers in the mainstream c-Si cell sector in the solar industry, with all other applications either legacy/dormant or as part of process flows that may reside permanently in the research lab or at best make it into production, several years from now.
GCL-Poly Energy Holding has placed a bid of US$150 million for the polysilicon assets of bankrupt renewable energy firm SunEdison via the US bankruptcy court dealing with the Chapter 11 proceedings.
The solar yieldco business model was “flawed from the beginning” according to Santosh Raikar, managing director of renewable energy investments at State Street Bank.
Canadian Solar has made a third major revision to its planned manufacturing capacity expansion plans for 2016, while reiterating previously guided PV module shipments and revenue for the year.
CIS thin-film module manufacturer Solar Frontier has signed a memorandum of understanding with Saudi Aramco and the Saudi Arabian National Industrial Cluster Development Program (NICDP) on the feasibility of
establishing a thin-film module production plant in Saudi Arabia.
An efficient exchange of knowledge is essential to move the technology forward. In June 2016, the IW-CIGSTech workshop was organized for the seventh consecutive year in a row. This time, the event took place
as a parallel event to the EU-PVSEC/Intersolar Europe in Munich. In the workshop, representatives from industry and academia gathered to discuss the latest developments in the fast-developing field of CIGS
(Cu(In,Ga)(Se,S)2) based solar cells. As a result of last year’s workshop, a joint, community-wide effort resulted in the broadly acknowledged “White Paper for CIGS thin film solar cell technology”. In this article, we provide a brief impression of the progress and challenges reported in this year’s workshop.
The rebound in solar cell capital expenditures during 2015 and 2016 has resulted in strong capacity additions and upgrade spending that is set to redefine the technology landscape in 2017 and beyond. Within this however is a broad range of drivers, impacting the mix of n-type and p-type cells produced, in addition to the various strategies employed to increase cell efficiencies while reducing overall blended manufacturing costs. Coupled with the various module types being selected within the key global end markets, and the balance between effective capacity and market demand, 2017 is forecast to see a range of approaches adopted by cell producers, with technology differentiation becoming increasingly important across the entire industry.
In this quarterly report of global PV manufacturing capacity expansion announcements in the first half of 2016, key analysis is given on the continued high level of activity through the second quarter of the year. This report also includes a new bottom-up analysis of ‘effective’ capacity expansions since the beginning of 2014 to provide a better and more accurate assessment of the current manufacturing environment.
This paper examines the use of stencil printing instead of screen printing in order to achieve improved fine line print quality for greater efficiency. In addition, a comparison of polymer and metal squeegees on fine line print performance is analyzed, with varying line apertures studied to understand the impact on the efficiency of PERC solar cells.
The continual increase in cell efficiency of passivated emitter and rear cells (PERCs), as well as the optimization of the module processes, has led to significant advances in module power and efficiency. To achieve the
highest module power output, one important aspect to consider is the optimization of the solar cell front metallization and the cell interconnection.
