Technical Papers

With mature product offerings now available from several of the leading industrial PV equipment and tool manufacturers, and latest-generation ECAs available from suppliers, this article aims to provide important background information on ECAs, as well as give a brief overview of some of the challenges and cutting-edge developments in ECA-related PV applications.

This paper reviews those associated fabrication technologies for the mass production of Ni/Cu-plated contacts. The technologies currently in use in the PV industry for plated contacts, as well as the developing technologies having high scaling-up potential, will be reviewed. In addition, the future requirements for plating metallization will be discussed.

This paper discusses what is actually behind these announcements and how an evolutionary industry sector such as PVis becoming, it seems, decidedly revolutionary with large jumps in efficiency.

This paper presents an analysis and the results of extensive simulations of the efficiency limits and roadmap to 25.5% of a tunnel oxide passivated contact (TOPCon) solar cell, on the basis of an efficiency level of 25.21% (designed area, identified by ISFH) achieved through three years of continuous technical optimization on a pilot line at Longi.

The development of new ways of increasing the production throughput for passivated emitter and rear cells (PERCs), as the major solar cell technology in the global market, is an area of great interest to the PV community. This paper presents approaches for significantly increasing the throughput of PERC production processes. The main focus is on the tube furnace processes for the emitter formation and oxidation, with the introduction of the High Temperature Stack Oxidation (HiTSOx) approach. Additional approaches that are currently under investigation at Fraunhofer ISE for increasing the throughput for wet-chemical, printing and laser processes will also be briefly outlined.

Battery energy storage systems are placed in increasingly demanding market conditions, providing a wide range of applications. Christoph Birkl, Damien Frost and Adrien Bizeray of Brill Power discuss how to build a battery management system (BMS) that ensures long lifetimes, versatility and availability.

Sometimes called ‘community batteries,’ energy storage systems are being installed at neighbourhood level in Australia. Experts from the Australian National University explain how this type of battery storage can benefit a very wide range of stakeholders.

With over 25 years’ experience as a firefighter and now part of a group that specialises in battery storage safety, Paul Rogers at Energy Safety Response Group knows all about fire safety from both sides of the fence. He tells Andy Colthorpe about some of the pressing issues that need attention.

Crucial to clean power generation, battery energy storage systems need advanced fire protection. Steve Kenny, general manager for Advanced Fire Detection at Honeywell Building Technologies talks about why the detection of off-gases is an important line of defence.

Prior to 2019, there was an ample number of insurers willing to provide renewable energy insurance, leading to plentiful, affordable cover being available for solar power project finance transactions. However, with increased claims and risks, price rises and lower availability of cover is impacting the sector. Duncan Gordon, head of Renewable Energy at specialist energy insurance brokerage and risk management firm Gallagher, provides an overview of how solar power project owners can navigate a challenging insurance market.