The EU project SWEET on epitaxial wafers equivalents

In the roadmap for crystalline silicon thin-film solar cells, we find epitaxial wafer equivalents to be closest to a production. The EU project SWEET, running 3 years from 2002 to 2005, was an integral part of this roadmap. Its main target was the scaling up of epitaxial wafer equivalents to industrially relevant sizes, with an emphasis on improved cell efficiency, usage of production technologies for material and solar cell processing, covering the whole chain from substrate development to module manufacturing. The present contribution will summarize the progress and results made in SWEET, and will give an overview of the consequences to be drawn from these results.