Your daily dose of photovoltaic technology developments and solar news

• Popular Technical Papers

  • Overview of automation in the photovoltaic industry
  • Understanding moisture ingress and packaging requirements for photovoltaic modules
  • Evaluation of encapsulant materials for PV applications
  • Inline processing of crystalline silicon solar cells: the holy grail for large-scale manufacturing?
  • PV sector outlook: an analyst’s perspective

• Featured Technical Papers

  • Transparent conducting oxide deposition techniques for thin-film photovoltaics
  • Comprehensive and advanced quality assurance measures for optimal yields from PV power plants
  • Surface passivation of silicon solar cells using industrially relevant Al2O3 deposition techniques
  • Influence of a-Si:H deposition temperature on thermal stability of a-Si:H/SiNx:H stacks
  • Integrated loops: a prerequisite for sustainable and environmentally-friendly polysilicon production

Upgraded metallurgical-grade (UMG) silicon is a lower cost and lower quality form of solar-grade silicon that is capable of producing solar cells at over 16% efficiency. This paper presents some of the economic advantages and technical concerns and solutions associated with producing silicon based PV from UMG, as well as preliminary solar cell results using this material. Results are based on a comparison of cells made in a turnkey line (Schmid Group) using alloy blends of 10%, 20%, 30% and 100% UMG, mixed with solar-grade Si before ingot growth. Detailed characterization was carried out on these finished cells according to lifetime, LBIC, diffusion length and luminescence imaging to determine correlations of performance with basic parameters. Requirements for material cost and cell performance necessary for UMG solar cells to be cost competitive are also presented.

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