With lower returns on investment in PV projects, financial institutions have an ever-increasing demand for risk mitigation. Project stakeholders are asked to provide evidence of risk-management actions and have to look for ways to guarantee an adequate level of quality for their systems. Product certification, although necessary to help qualify the design of a product, does not provide a guarantee that mass production will achieve the targeted quality level; it has therefore become necessary to find reliable methods to assess the quality of PV systems on a large scale. Production monitoring, as part of a global quality plan for a PV system, is a cost-effective way to implement real-time checks in the manufacturing facilities, providing reassurance for stakeholders and helping manufacturers to improve their manufacturing processes. This paper details the principles behind production monitoring, the methodology used and how to deploy a production-monitoring project.
With the objectives of reducing cell-to-module losses, improving module efficiency and reducing the price per watt, increasing importance is being placed on the optical properties of backsheets. It is assumed that a higher reflectance backsheet allows a better reuse of incident sunlight. However, this statement is not always true: another factor must be taken in account, namely the angular dependence of the reflected light. In this regard, backsheets with a high specular component deviate from the ideal Lambertian reflectance, resulting in a minor increase in module current. As a result, differences can be found in module power because of the use of backsheets with similar global reflectance but different angular components of reflected light. A total of 33 industrial backsheets with Tedlar, Kynar, EVA and PET layers from different suppliers were analysed. A comparison of backsheets with low and high global reflectances revealed that the power variation in a standard PV module reaches 0.54% abs. In the same vein, and for backsheets with similar global reflectances, it was experimentally found that the angular response of the reflected light was responsible for a power difference of 0.22% abs. in a standard module.
During the past two years remarkable performance improvements have been reported for polycrystalline Cu(In,Ga)Se2 (CIGS), CdTe and perovskite thin-film solar cells. In this paper the key breakthroughs in CIGS thin-film technology are reviewed and the scope for further performance improvements by analysing the stillremaining electrical and optical losses in record-efficiency CIGS solar cells is discussed. On the basis of this analysis it is believed that conversion efficiencies up to 25% are achievable with CIGS solar cells in the mid term. Furthermore, the potential for the concept of polycrystalline multi-junction solar cells to push efficiencies even further, towards 30%, is discussed. Finally, a short review of the CIGS market and an outlook from an industrial perspective are presented.
A recent revitalization of the passivated emitter and rear cell (PERC) concept in the silicon PV industry has resulted in solar energy conversion efficiencies of greater than 20% being achieved on p-type solargrade single-crystalline silicon (mono-Si) wafers during the past two years or so, thanks to technological advance in the use of aluminium oxide for silicon surface passivation. The research efforts carried out at JA Solar in developing an industry version of PERC cells that can be mass produced utilizing the existing conventional back-surface field (BSF) cell manufacturing platform with moderate retrofitting have yielded 20.5% average conversion efficiency, which can be consistently achieved on p-type Si wafers grown by the Czochralski method. Moreover, the experimental results showed that an average conversion efficiency of 20% is achievable when, in combination with JA Solar’s proprietary light-trapping technique, the same technological approach is applied to the cells using high-quality polycrystalline silicon (multi-Si) wafers produced by the seeded directional solidification method.
In this paper large-area (239cm2) n-type passivated emitter, rear totally diffused (n-PERT) solar cells are compared with state-of-the-art p-type passivated emitter and rear cells (p-PERC) to evaluate potential advantages of n-PERT over p-PERC. In particular, an investigation has been carried out of fully screenprinted bifacial n-PERT solar cells, in which the boron-doped emitter is contacted with aluminiumcontaining silver (AgAl) pastes, as well as of n-PERT back-junction (BJ) solar cells, in which the B-doped emitter is locally contacted with screen-printed Al. Using two separate quartz furnace diffusions for the B- and P-doped regions, efficiencies of up to 20.3% on bifacial n-PERT solar cells and of up to 20.5% on n-PERT BJ solar cells were achieved. In comparison, reference p-PERC solar cells that were processed in parallel achieved efficiencies of up to 20.6% before light-induced degradation (LID), but degraded to 20.1% after 48 hours of illumination. In addition, ion implantation and pre-deposition of dopant sources have been evaluated as alternative technologies for forming the full-area doping of the front and rear wafer surfaces, thus reducing the number of processing steps for n-PERT solar cells. Using ion implantation and a co-annealing step, efficiencies of up to 20.6% for bifacial n-PERT solar cells have been achieved, and of up to 20.5% for n-PERT solar cells, in which the P-doped back-surface field is contacted with evaporated Al. By employing a boron silicate glass (BSG) deposited via plasma-enhanced chemical vapour deposition (PECVD) as a dopant source, along with a co-diffusion step, n-PERT BJ solar cells have been fabricated with up to 19.8% energy conversion efficiency.
The aim of this paper is to dispel the common belief that bifaciality is nonsense as it is not a mature technology, it is expensive and, because in large systems there is limited albedo from the rear side, it only serves the niche market. A complete picture of bifacial cell technologies and module concepts is presented, as well as levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) results for present and future bifacial systems.
One question to emerge in recent years is whether monocrystalline silicon (mono-Si) or multicrystalline silicon (mc-Si) will become the dominant mainstream technology in the future PV industry. However, despite all the arguments, the market share of mc-Si seems barely changed, while the market share of mono-Si has not increased significantly. The reasons why mono-Si has not made progress have been extensively mentioned in the literature and will therefore not be covered here; rather, the objective of this paper is to discuss several benefits of mono-Si.
Global PV end-market demand for PV modules is expected to reach around 50GW in 2014, which has prompted the need for manufacturers to expand capacity to meet demand. With effective module capacity standing at around 45GW at the end of 2013, Photovoltaics International (PVI) has analysed solar cell, c-Si and thin-film capacity expansion announcements that were extensively reported by sister website, PV Tech, from the beginning of 2014 through to the end of November to establish key trends.
Looking back, 2014 was a year of convalescence for a PV industry still battered and bruised from a period of ferocious competition. End-market demand continued apace, with analysts towards the end of 2014 predicting the year would see between around 45 and 50GW of deployment. That has begun to feed through to the supplier end of the market, with all the main manufacturers announcing capacity expansions in 2015 and further ahead.
A detailed analysis of state-of-the-art CIGS technology has resulted in a direct cost of ownership (CoO) of €0.44/Wp for this PV module type. However, the reduction in production costs, although impressive, is not sufficient for CIGS to become competitive with today’s c-Si technology. In order to answer the question as to whether CIGS will ever be able to challenge c-Si, the cost-reduction potential of CIGS is investigated. The impact of savings is evaluated in respect of the material segment, production equipment, energy and labour, production yield, device efficiency and absorber thickness. A total cost-reduction potential of around €0.21/ Wp is identified, which would be enough to put CIGS back into the game (the direct CoO will continue to be dominated by material and equipment depreciation, adding up to 68%). These cost reductions, however, cannot be realized immediately: within the next two years, €0.03/Wp is expected to be feasible, while it will take two to four years for the next €0.107/Wp. For the final €0.073/Wp, a time frame of at least five years is predicted, with corresponding costs for the technology developments. Provided that someone is willing to spend the necessary amount of time and money, the second part of the answer regarding CIGS’ competitiveness will depend on how c-Si evolves within this time period.
