NEWS I REVIEW
German solar installations to move from parks to rooftops
EUROPE is set to dominate the own consumption segment, with growth of up to 150 GWp by 2020. More than half of all installed solar capacity worldwide could be for own consumption by the end of the decade, according to a recent McKinsey study. Germany is already the global frontrunner in solar power, accounting for approximately half of the world’s photovoltaic capacity.
“Those companies who survive the current consolidation wave will experience a bright future. Especially the rooftop segment and downstream business models are expected to drive the industry forward,” stated Tobias Rothacher, photovoltaic industry expert at Germany Trade & Invest in Berlin.
The global solar industry is experiencing growing pains as prices and margins continue to fall. At the same time demand is likely to increase by an additional 400 to 600 GWp of photovoltaic capacity worldwide by 2020, according to the
McKinsey report “Solar power: Darkest before dawn”. Especially the business-to- customer segment for own consumption is creating opportunities for innovative downstream companies that offer comprehensive installation and service packages.
“Germany has supported own consumption of solar power for years. The coming grid parity era is ushering in an era of new business opportunities. We expect Germany to continue to be the top business location, as innovations and industry standards are developed here,” continued Rothacher.
First Solar and Intermolecular announce joint program
FIRST SOLAR and Intermolecular announced an agreement aimed at accelerating the roadmap for First Solar’s cadmium-telluride (CdTe) photovoltaic (PV) technology. Under a newly signed collaborative development program, First Solar will leverage Intermolecular’s High Productivity Combinatorial (HPC) platform in the development of its advanced, CdTe-based, thin film PV manufacturing technology. Technical work is to be performed jointly at Intermolecular’s San Jose, Calif., facility and in First Solar’s research and development labs.
“We are excited to engage in this collaboration with Intermolecular,” said Raffi Garabedian, First Solar CTO. “Further improving our CdTe conversion efficiencies remains a strong lever to reduce the cost of solar energy. We evaluated Intermolecular’s HPC platform
and team in a trial collaboration.”
First Solar set a new world record for CdTe PV solar module efficiency in January 2012, achieving 14.4 percent total area efficiency. In July 2011, the company set a world record for CdTe PV cell efficiency at 17.3 percent. Both records were confirmed by the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL).
Craig Hunter, Intermolecular’s senior vice president of Global Sales & Marketing, commented, “Leveraging our HPC platform to accelerate the PV roadmap is central to our mission at Intermolecular. The deal with First Solar represents validation of that proposition, particularly given the extensive technical due diligence the First Solar team conducted prior to entering into this agreement.”
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www.solar-international.net I Issue V 2012
imec and Kaneka announce solar breakthrough
KANEKA and imec report a large area (6 inch semi-square) heterojunction silicon solar cell with a certified power conversion efficiency of 22.68% with an electroplated copper contact grid on top of the transparent conductive oxide layer. This breakthrough is achieved at Kaneka Osaka lab using Kaneka’s copper electroplating technology which is based on imec’s state-of-the-art copper electroplating knowhow.
To realize the top grid electrode in heterojunction silicon solar cells, silver screen printing is the preferred technology in the PV (photovoltaic) industry. However, a drawback of this technology is the difficulty to lower resistivity and to thin the metal line in silver screen printed contacts. As a result, efficiencies remain below optimal and cost remains relatively high. Replacing the screen-printed silver with electroplated copper overcomes the disadvantages of silver screen printing, enabling higher efficiencies and reduced fabrication costs.
Kaneka’s Photovoltaics European Laboratory is located at the imec campus in Leuven (Belgium), with access to imec’s state-of-the-art PV infrastructure. The collaboration between Kaneka and imec has led to the improvement of Kaneka’s thin-film solar cells and the development of next-generation heterojunction cells. This development of large area Cu-plated heterojunction silicon solar cells is an important step towards a fab-compatible process on large area module integrated solar cells. Kenji Yamamoto, General Manager of Kaneka’s Photovoltaics European Laboratory says that “Kaneka is proud to have achieved this result which was made possible through the initial developments made by imec.”
Jef Poortmans, Director PV technologies at imec: “We are excited that we could support Kaneka in developing this breakthrough results. They prove the capabilities of copper metallization for next-generation solar cells and strengthen our believe that in the future copper will play an important role in high efficiency and sustainable solar cell technology.”
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