JUNE 8-13, 2014 • DENVER, COLORADO
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TECHNICAL AREA OVERVIEWS
CRYSTALLINE SILICON
PHOTOVOLTAICS
Chair: Stefan Glunz, Fraunhofer ISE,
Germany
Co-Chairs:
Ron Sinton, Sinton Instruments, USA
Mariana Bertoni, ASU, USA
Donghwan Kim, Korea University, Korea
Area 4 Description
Crystalline silicon photovoltaics is the dominant solar cell
technology, with a market share of around 85% in 2012. Silicon
is non-toxic and abundantly available in the earth’s crust;
silicon PV modules have proven their long-term stability over
decades in the field. The price reduction of silicon modules
in the last 30 years can be described very well by a learning
factor of 20%. Due to strong competition, this price decline was
even stronger in the last years, resulting in module prices well
below $1/W. This is an excellent situation for customers and
PV installers, but rather challenging for producers of silicon
solar cells and modules. Thus, cost reduction is still a major
task. The cost distribution of a crystalline silicon PV module
is clearly dominated by material costs, especially by the cost
of the silicon wafer. Therefore, besides improved production
technologies, the efficiency of the cells and modules is the
main leverage to bring down the cost even more, especially
when considering the full levelized cost of PV electricity. Area
4 of the 40th IEEE PVSC presents contributions reporting on
all aspects of crystalline silicon technology, encompassing
the whole value chain, as well as fundamental and scientific
aspects.
S
ub-Area Chairs
Daniel Macdonald (ANU, Australia), Pierre-Jean Ribeyron
(CEA-INES, France), Bram Hoex (SERIS, Singapore), Giso
Hahn (Uni Konstanz, Germany), Paul Basore (USA)
AREA 4 OVERVIEW
