Progress in Manufacturable High-Efficiency Silicon Solar Cells

Abstract

As an important step towards making photovoltaics an economic source of energy, the efficiency of industrial crystalline silicon solar cells has to be drastically increased. In this way not only more power is gained with less silicon, but simultaneously also all other area-related costs of the PV system are reduced. It’s of great importance to bridge the efficiency gap existing between the present industrial solar cells with values of 14% to 16% and the sophisticated laboratory cells with a record efficiency close to 25%. Recently new technologies are emerging or existing ones being upgraded aiming for the ambitious goal to manufacture silicon solar cells with efficiencies above 20% cost effectively in an industrial environment. Five different promising approaches of high efficiency silicon solar cells are presented in this paper, including both front and back contacted as well as bifacially sensitive devices. The choice of the silicon substrate material is also discussed.