Development, cost reduction and customized design of industrial concentrator solar cells with efficiencies approaching 40% and above

Present developments of the lattice-matched In_0.50Ga_0.50P/In_0.01Ga_0.99As/Ge triple-junction solar cell incorporating a high bandgap top cell achieve average efficiencies of up to 40%. Metamorphic cell structures will further raise efficiencies above 40%. Both developments reduce the cost for CPV by increasing the performance of today´s CPV systems. In order to directly decrease cell costs a lean production process with optimized MOVPE cycle time is under investigation. Due to the high amount of cells per wafer, precise cell testing with high throughput is an important issue. For highest performance on the module level, the cell design needs to be adapted to the customers´ needs according to the concentrating ratio, optics used and installation site. This work summarizes recent achievements in CPV development, cost analysis and customizing.