Options
2012
Book Article
Titel
Crystalline silicon solar cells: State-of-the-art and future developments
Abstract
Crystalline silicon solar cells have dominated the photovoltaic market since the very beginning in the 1950s. Silicon is nontoxic and abundantly available in the earth's crust, and silicon PV modules have shown their long-term stability over decades in practice. The reduction in the price of silicon modules in the last 30 years can be described very well by a learning factor of 20%, that is, doubling the cumulated module capacity results in a reduction of module prices by 20%. Production has exploded in the last few years, reaching a new record value of more than 20 GWp in 2010. To extend the success story of this photovoltaic working horse, it is important to further bring down the costs. The cost distribution of a crystalline silicon PV module is clearly dominated by material costs, especially by the costs of the silicon wafer. Therefore, besides improved production technology, the efficiency of the cells and modules is the main leverage to bring down the costs even more. This chapter describes the state-of-the-art process for silicon solar cells and gives an insight into advanced processes and cell designs.