COST EFFECTIVENESS OF HIGH EFFICIENCY CELL AS APPLIED TO CAST POLYCRYSTALLINE SILICON

Rccent research programs have been extremely succcssful at improving the efficiency of crystalline silicon solar cells. This work is of value to the Photovoltaic Industry because it shows that such higher cfficiencies are possible and it can be used as a guidc to select improved processes and materials Tor commcrcial manufacturing. This paper will revicw recent high efficiency work to determine which processes may be cost effectively applied to cast polycrystalline silicon wafers. The methodology is based on a full lifecycle costing to determine the cffcct of improved cell efficiency on the ultimate cost to the customer of the PV produced electricity. The same costing model (SAMICS) has been applied to cach of the proposed process sequences to obtain an estimate of the manufacturing cost of modules produced by each technology. The costs are based on building stand alone 10 Megawatt a year factories from casting through final module assembly and test.