IBC cells

The search for ever higher conversion efficiency has driven solar researchers to focus on back-contact cell approaches, and efforts to devise more cost-effective manufacturing are bringing technologies such as interdigitated back contact (IBC) solar into the mainstream, as Mark Hutchins reports.

Last month, in a pv magazine Webinar held in partnership with Endurans Solar, we took a closer at Endurans’ conductive backsheet for back contact modules, and examined recent progress in back contact cell and module technologies, and their growing market potential over the next few years. Here, presenters Hugo Schoot, Business director at Endurans Solar, and Bram Verschoor, CCO at equipment supplier Eurotron, answer a more of the questions posed by the audience during the webinar.

The interconnection tech, developed by scientists at the Belgian research institute Imec, is based on a three-dimensional fabric of encapsulant with incorporated horizontal and vertical solder‐coated metal ribbons. Mini solar modules built with the proposed technique have provided interesting results in tests for thermal cycling reliability, showing very limited degradation.

The module manufacturer has opened its second 500 MW factory in China.

Appetite may have been lacking among private investors – at a time when global stocks are tanking amid Covid-19 and global recession fears – but the eco-friendly new Finnish government, and neighboring administrations, have stepped in to fill the breach.

Researchers in Germany are trialing a host of new processes and materials to develop interdigitated back contact solar cells. A deposition technology named ‘hot-wire’ chemical vapor deposition, is said to provide excellent passivation without the need for treatments such as recrystallization or hydrogenation.

The Finnish PV equipment provider and the Lithuanian PV panel maker will manufacture IBC solar cells at Solitek’s factory in Vilnius with an initial production capacity of 60 MW.

The new record is just 0.24% below the Chinese company’s small-area laboratory cell record and has been achieved on an industrial, large area cell.