news digest ♦ compound semiconductor ♦ industry news
SAFC & Partners to Support Solar Cell Development
The firm along with strategic partners intends to develop a number of new processes to develop high efficiency, low cost solar cell manufacture to support the PV industry.
SAFC HitechR, a business segment within SAFCR, a member of the Sigma-AldrichR Group has announced details of a number of areas and initiatives in which it is working within the solar industry,
As a global supplier of key materials and solutions to the research and fabrication community focusing on PV cells, SAFC Hitech’s product portfolio includes materials used as dopants in the manufacture of crystal silicon cells and window layers in Cadmium Telluride (CdTe) and CopperIndium Gallium (di)Selenide (CIGS) cells.
With the solar market expected to grow exponentially over the next decade, global solar capacity is expected to be at a minimum of 125GW (125 billion watts) by 2020. SAFC Hitech is focused on working to help address solar cell efficiency and the high cost of solar systems, historic barriers to the mass market adoption of solar.
Looking ahead to future iterations of solar cell technology, the Company is working closely with customers and research partners to develop new specialty chemical offerings to enable the fabrication of advanced, next generation solar cells.
“Although solar cells have been around for over 50 years, their efficiencies have only increased marginally in that timeframe, which has been a significant barrier to the wide-scale adoption of solar power,” said Philip Rose, SAFC Hitech president.
As long ago as 1957, Hoffman Electronics achieved 8% efficient photovoltaic cells, a figure that rose to 14% in 1960. In 1992, researchers at the University of South Florida developed a thin-film photovoltaic cell made of CdTe, which was 15.9% efficient.
As recently as June 24, 2010, SunPower Corp. set a new efficiency record for large area silicon wafer solar cells with a conversion efficiency of 24.2%. Essentially it has taken over half a century for the efficiency rate to treble.
100
www.compoundsemiconductor.net August/September 2010
Cost has also been a critical factor preventing mass-market uptake of solar technology. With domestic systems and installation costing approximately $20,000 or more, adoption of solar energy for many consumers means seeking Government or State incentives, or home equity loans. The United States government recently set aside $150 million to assist homeowners with the installation of solar panels and other energy improvements.
However, this tax-assessed financing initiative, referred to as property assessed clean energy, or PACE, loans, and paid back over time by homeowners as an addition to their property taxes, has run into problems. The two government agencies that purchase and resell most home mortgages have stated that they may not accept loans for homes that have PACE loan financing against them. Additionally, the stagnant housing market of the past few years has seen a fall in home equity loans that may have been used to install solar systems.
“To encourage increased adoption of solar energy, there is a clear need for solar power to become both more efficient and more cost-effective relative to the coal-based electricity rate,” continued Rose. “To meet the rise in demand and the need for improved energy efficiency at lower cost across the solar market, a number of new processes and new technologies are being researched and examined,” he continued.
SAFC Hitech’s goal now is, through collaborative agreements with strategic partners, to integrate new precursor usage efficiently to improve user processes and support the PV industry with a wide range of products suited to all competing technologies.”
Examples of SAFC Hitech’s research team involvement with different approaches to commercially viable solar cells and the development of higher efficiency, low cost modules are outlined below:
III-V precursors for Concentrated PV applications
- The combination of tandem III/V cells with concentrator technology has been proven to afford higher cell efficiencies. Concentrator PV (or CPV) increased optimized cell efficiencies from 20-25% to 41% by using materials capable of high efficiency
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132 |
Page 133 |
Page 134 |
Page 135 |
Page 136 |
Page 137 |
Page 138 |
Page 139 |
Page 140 |
Page 141 |
Page 142 |
Page 143 |
Page 144 |
Page 145 |
Page 146 |
Page 147 |
Page 148 |
Page 149 |
Page 150 |
Page 151 |
Page 152 |
Page 153 |
Page 154 |
Page 155 |
Page 156 |
Page 157 |
Page 158 |
Page 159 |
Page 160 |
Page 161 |
Page 162 |
Page 163 |
Page 164 |
Page 165 |
Page 166 |
Page 167 |
Page 168 |
Page 169 |
Page 170 |
Page 171 |
Page 172 |
Page 173 |
Page 174 |
Page 175 |
Page 176 |
Page 177 |
Page 178 |
Page 179 |
Page 180 |
Page 181 |
Page 182 |
Page 183 |
Page 184 |
Page 185 |
Page 186 |
Page 187 |
Page 188 |
Page 189 |
Page 190 |
Page 191 |
Page 192 |
Page 193 |
Page 194 |
Page 195 |
Page 196 |
Page 197 |
Page 198 |
Page 199 |
Page 200 |
Page 201 |
Page 202 |
Page 203 |
Page 204 |
Page 205 |
Page 206 |
Page 207 |
Page 208 |
Page 209 |
Page 210 |
Page 211 |
Page 212 |
Page 213