Generation III high efficiency lower cost technology: Transition to full scale manufacturing

Author

Smith, David D. ; Cousins, Peter J. ; Masad, Asnat ; Waldhauer, Ann ; Westerberg, Staffan ; Johnson, Michael ; Tu, Xiuwen ; Dennis, Tim ; Harley, Gabriel ; Solomon, Genevieve ; Rim, Seung ; Shepherd, Michael ; Harrington, Scott ; Defensor, Michael ; Leygo

Author_Institution

SunPower Corp., San Jose, CA, USA

fYear

2012

fDate

3-8 June 2012

Abstract

This paper reports on the first large scale manufacturing of Gen III solar cells. The Gen III product has been designed to deliver increased performance and lower cost throughout the value chain. Reduced emitter recombination is the key feature to deliver the efficiency improvement. Gen III is now ramping on a production line in SunPower´s Philippines manufacturing plant. Production run median efficiency is 23.6%. Total area module efficiency is 21.2 %. The Gen III solar cell architecture has a low breakdown voltage in reverse, which minimizes power loss and wear on module materials under shaded conditions.

Keywords

costing; electric breakdown; manufacturing industries; solar cells; Gen III product; Gen III solar cells; Generation III high efficiency lower cost technology; SunPower Philippines manufacturing plant; breakdown voltage; full scale manufacturing; large scale manufacturing; module materials; production line; reduced emitter recombination; value chain; wear; Computer architecture; Manufacturing; Passivation; Photovoltaic cells; Production; Reliability; Photovoltaic cells; reliability; silicon;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Photovoltaic Specialists Conference (PVSC), 2012 38th IEEE

Conference_Location

Austin, TX

ISSN

0160-8371

Print_ISBN

978-1-4673-0064-3

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/PVSC.2012.6317899

Filename

6317899