Objective
A recently finished MusicFM study of the EC has clearly demonstrated that increasing the market size towards 500 MWp/year will lead to a drastic crystalline Si photovoltaic module price reduction below 1ECU/Wp if the solar cell process is based on printing metallization and substrates are from Si sheets, ribbons or casted multicrystalline Si. Though laboratory and industrial production processes have already demonstrated required efficiency levels, there are still severe barriers and bottlenecks in all European industrial production lines with respect to through-put, yield, investment cost or material and energy consumption for the available production equipment. The reason for this is the lack of equipment especially designed and developed for the need of the photovoltaic industry.
To overcome this situation, an experienced European consortium of 8 partners from universities, research institutes, equipment and PV manufacturing companies (2 partners from each group), was formed in order to develop a new generation of automated high through-put equipment for crystalline silicon solar cell and module key manufacturing technologies. The main technical objectives of the project are in detail:
- Identification of alternative low cost processes and development of innovative equipment design for the key crystalline silicon solar cell manufacturing technologies, inherently suitable for processing of future thin (<200um) large-area (at least 4 dm2) cast multicrystalline, ribbon or even thin film Si substrates
- Implementation of energy, materials and waste saving aspects in the new processing schemes
- Development of new process sequences based on the new technology approaches - Realization of prototypes and establishment of the related processes - Performance of a "proof-of-concept" including testing in an industrial environment and of a cost assessment for these new technology approaches to assess their suitability for a multi megawatt high through-put production.
The adressed key technologies are in detail: surface texturization, diffusion, selective emitter, metallization, PECVD-SiN deposition, cell interconnection and wafer handling.
The successful realization of these objectives should result in the achievement of the following major scientific and technical targets:
- Demonstration by "proof-of-concept" that through-put rates up to 20 dm2 per minute (corresponding to about 10 MW/year capacity) are achievable with the newly developed processes and related equipment
- Verification of a mean efficiency increase of 10 % relative for a multicrystalline silicon substrate material
- Assessment of a substantial cost saving by the new technology approach in mass production.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- engineering and technology materials engineering coating and films
- natural sciences chemical sciences inorganic chemistry metalloids
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Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Topic(s)
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
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Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Coordinator
63755 Alzenau
Germany
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.