By Thorsten Dullweber, Christopher Kranz, Robby Peibst, Ulrike Baumann & Helge Hannebauer, ISFH; Alexander Fülle, Stefan Steckemetz, Torsten Weber, Martin Kutzer, Matthias Müller, Gerd Fischer, Phedon Palinginis & Holger Neuhaus, SolarWorld Innovations
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.