A cost-driven research strategy towards industrially feasible high-efficiency back-contact back-junction silicon solar cells

The development and improvement of silicon solar cells is often based on a top-down approach, achieving highest conversion efficiencies and then translating it to industrial equipment and fabrication routes. This work presents an alternative option to derive research and fabrication strategies focused on cost of ownership calculations. Given the necessary tools and insight into feasible production routes, this attempt can be very helpful and rewarding for (small) research facilities, existing solar cell fabrication plants or interested investors in the solar industry. A research strategy is exemplarily derived for the goal of industrially feasible back-contact back-junction solar cells, but many aspects can be generalized for different purposes. Several different fabrication routes are shown and compared to a PERC fabrication route. We find that a co-diffusion approach can offer significant cost reduction potential on cell level, from +21 %rel down to -2%rel.