Guest lecture: Photovoltaics – Crystalline Silicon and Beyond
By Director Stefan Glunz from Fraunhofer Institute of Solar Energy Systems ISE, Division of Solar Cells - Development and Characterization, Germany
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Abstract:
Since the early days of photovoltaics in the 1950s, crystalline silicon solar cells have been the workhorse of this strongly growing industry. Since then great progress has been achieved in decreasing production costs from hundreds of US dollars per Wp down to values well below $1/Wp. Also the technology itself has been strongly improved, as reflected by increasing cell efficiencies in research and production. The notorious 20% hurdle, exceeded only by a small number of companies a few years ago, is now cleared by more and more companies mainly using a cell architecture with partial rear contact as PERC. A new generation of silicon solar cells utilizing passivated contacts such as a-Si/c-Si heterojunction or tunnel contacts is just around the corner. In the future silicon-based tandem cells might enable the continuation of the success story of crystalline silicon photovoltaics even beyond the theoretical limit of pure silicon solar cells.