Featured in Powering up mainstream players – 03-2017

Shaving cents off wafers

pv magazine Germany award: The end consumer market is where the action is these days in Germany’s energy transition. But keeping the ball rolling depends on keeping PV affordable. A German production equipment manufacturer has new method that promises significant cost reductions.

By

Michael Fuhs

15 Mar 2017

Image: Armin Kübelbeck, CC-BY-SA, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/, Wikimedia Commons

Installed solar cells have a beautiful dark blue or, increasingly, an elegant black appearance. It is easy to forget that the base material starts out with a shiny silvery matte, and that some of the manufacturing processes are quite messy. Most polycrystalline wafers are cut with a wire saw with the help of a slurry …

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