The future for Solar PV
Solar PV has the greatest potential to meet the world’s growing electricity needs when compared to other renewable energy sources. By way of illustration – the energy from 1 hour of sunlight on the earth’s surface is sufficient to meet annual global energy consumption.
The goal for solar photovoltaic energy production is to achieve ‘grid parity’ i.e. to be cost competitive with the current energy generation. This can only be achieved by reducing the cost per watt of the solar cells/modules produced and increasing their efficiency.
INDUSTRY DRIVERS
The PV industry is actively engaged in reducing its costs across the whole value chain. In order to differentiate their offerings, c-Si solar cell manufacturers must continuously improve the efficiency of their devices without incurring unsustainable costs. Such improvements have historically been made by taking small incremental steps in the manufacturing process, specifically by adopting new, more advanced, cell architectures which require novel manufacturing tools and processes.
