Building a cost-effective, fabrication facility for silicon solar cell R&D and production

Author

Crane, R.A. ; Verlinden, P.J. ; Swanson, R.M.

Author_Institution

SunPower Corp., Sunnyvale, CA, USA

fYear

1996

fDate

13-17 May 1996

Firstpage

529

Lastpage

532

Abstract

A research and development and production facility for high-concentration silicon solar cells has been built by Sun-Power Corporation utilizing existing, surplus production equipment and fabrication facilities. It has been possible to create a 10 MW/year production capability while spending only 25% of the original equipment and facilities price. The 158 m² (1700 ft²), class 100 clean room facility has produced silicon concentrator cells with efficiencies greater than 26% and one-sun silicon cells in the 22% range. To date, over 100 kW of cells have been manufactured

Keywords

elemental semiconductors; research and development management; silicon; solar cells; solar energy concentrators; 2 percent; 26 percent; Si; Si solar cell fabrication facility; Sun-Power Corporation; class 100 clean room facility; development; one-sun silicon cells; research; silicon concentrator cells; silicon solar cell production; surplus production equipment; Costs; Cranes; Fabrication; Foundries; Gases; Photovoltaic cells; Process design; Production facilities; Production materials; Silicon;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Photovoltaic Specialists Conference, 1996., Conference Record of the Twenty Fifth IEEE

Conference_Location

Washington, DC

ISSN

0160-8371

Print_ISBN

0-7803-3166-4

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/PVSC.1996.564060

Filename

564060