At Solar Power International 2013, 3M Renewable Energy is debuting its latest backside busbar tape, ‘4706’ which allows manufacturers to eliminate silver-based backside busbars, enabling cost savings and protecting against the volatility of silver prices.
In addition the 4706 backside busbar tape is claimed to have the potential to improve absolute efficiency by approximately 0.2%.
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The tape can be bonded to aluminium pastes, commonly used on the back surface of crystalline solar cells, and provides reliable, low-resistance electrical contact comparable to backside silver busbars, providing potential to improve absolute efficiency by approximately 0.2%, according to the company.
The tape is a copper foil tape coated with a high-performance heat-curable adhesive on one side, with preliminary tests demonstrating a stable long-term electrical performance in damp heat and thermal cycling.
3M can be found at booth #426 at SPI.
