LES JEUDIS DES SCIENCES
COLLOQUIUM GENERALE
Conférence 111 Semestre XV
Jeudi 27 novembre 2008, 17:30
Auditoire B02, Campus Kirchberg
en collaboration avec l’APHYL et Luxinnovation
Thin-film solar cells and modules: research, development, and perspectives
Uwe Rau Forschungszentrum Jülich
Solar energy conversion into electricity has the highest technical potential among all renewable energy
sources and in most long term scenarios plays a dominant role in the energy mix beyond 2050. The direct conversion of solar energy into electricity by solar cells and modules is one of only two available technologies for the generation of solar electricity. During the last decade, the world-wide production of solar modules has increased steadily with an annual rate of more than 25 %. Especially in Germany a fast growing photovoltaic industry has developed. However, the contribution of photovoltaics to the electricity production worldwide is still below 1 % and the cost of photovoltaic electricity is still too high for competitiveness on the energy market. A cost reduction by almost a factor of two is necessary to bring the price of photovoltaic electricity to grid parity and another factor two to three for becoming competitive to wholesale electricity.
At the moment 90 % of the photovoltaic market is covered by classical crystalline silicon solar cells. Nowadays, new thin-film technologies with a high potential of cost reduction enter the market. These technologies based on amorphous/microcrystalline silicon (a-Si/μc-Si) or on the compound semiconductors Cu(In,Ga)(S,Se)2 or CdTe are now in a critical stage of their economic development and have to prove their promises in the next future.
The lecture will discuss the present status of thin-film solar module research and development for the
three different technologies:
- a-Si/μc-Si,
- Cu(In,Ga)(S,Se)2
- and CdTe.
The requirements for large-area deposition of high quality materials will be considered as well as additional production steps like laser scribing and the final quality control of the finished device.
