Passivated emitter and rear cell (PERC) technology has been forecast to become mainstream in the next few years, gaining around a 30% market share. This paper presents a novel PERC solar cell design in which a screen-printed rear aluminium (Al) finger grid is used instead of the conventional full-area Al rear layer, while implementing the same PERC manufacturing sequence. This novel cell concept, called ‘PERC+’, offers several advantages over PERC, explored in the paper.
With the transition of the cell structure from aluminium back-surface field (Al-BSF) to passivated emitter and rear cell (PERC), the efficiency of multicrystalline silicon solar cells becomes more and more sensitive to variations in electrical material quality. Moreover, the variety of multicrystalline materials has increased with the introduction of high-performance multicrystalline silicon. For these reasons, a reliable and verifiable assessment of the electrical material quality of multicrystalline wafers gains importance: to this end, a rating procedure based on photoluminescence imaging has been developed.
With global business an increasing reality for PV, the role of logistics is transforming from service provider to true partner. This article makes the case for integrated partnership to move plant, products and business in the right direction.
This report focuses on expansion announcements in the third quarter of 2015, which was expected to be the low point in new capacity expansion announcements. Momentum seen during the first half of the year, however, carried through, and so a full nine-month analysis is also provided, to further characterize developments in 2015.
Securitisation is emerging as a promising new source of finance for the solar industry. Raymond Hudson looks at its potential for future growth and some of the considerations for developers looking to go down the securitisation route.
India’s 100GW solar target has unsurprisingly attracted huge interest from foreign players, but the market is not an easy one for outsiders to access. Reporting back from Intersolar India, held in Mumbai in November, Tom Kenning explores some of the key barriers to entry for overseas investors.
One of the claims made about large-scale storage coupled with solar is that it is difficult to justify from a business-case perspective. But evidence is already emerging from early projects that if done right, intelligent battery solutions are already competitive.
The optimal incorporation of SCADA systems into a PV power plant can have a significant bearing on the profitability of a project. Marcos Blanco looks at how the layout and design of a PV system can best be configured to optimise a project’s performance.
In recent years the number of PV installations in desert regions has increased, and a regular cleaning of the modules in these areas is necessary because of energy yield losses due to soiling. Investigations carried out by Nicoletta Ferretti and Juliane Berghold at PI Berlin, however, suggest that the stress caused by the cleaning procedure employed potentially affects the module performance during its lifetime.
