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

The principal paths to cost reduction for the photovoltaics industry are increasing the efficiency of solar cells and the power density of modules, together with the reduction of the specific consumption of silicon. Following the slowdown in the ever-increasing growth of the PV market earlier this year, and the reduction in the market cost of polysilicon, wafer producers and most cell producers moved back to the 180μm generation substrates. It may take some time for manufacturers to tackle the technological issues that need to be addressed in order to successfully decrease wafer thickness further. In this article, some of the issues related to the production of thinner and thinner cells are outlined and discussed.

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