Background and aims

Over the past three decades industrial crystalline silicon PV technology has shown impressive growth towards technological and economic maturity. This is evidenced by the fact that the experience curve for PV modules, which is almost exclusively determined by crystalline silicon, is characterized by a progress ratio of approximately 80% (1) over the same period.  In other words, typical selling prices have decreased by 20% for every doubling of the cumulative global sales.

The growth towards maturity can also be seen from the increase of module efficiencies and from the narrowing of the gap between laboratory results and manufacturing practice. Most commercial modules now have active area efficiencies in the range of 13 to 16% (total area efficiencies between 11 and 14% (2)), while laboratory record cell efficiencies are typically between 20 and 25% (3)  for the different types of crystalline silicon materials.

Because processes and materials used in leading laboratories are close to perfect, the latter range shifts upwards only very slowly. In contrast, processes and materials used in production still have significant room for improvement, and thus allow for a further increase in commercial module efficiencies. The main challenge is to combine such an efficiency increase with the necessary drastic reduction in cell and module manufacturing costs, and with enhanced environmental characteristics, while maintaining or even improving product quality and applicability.

Compared to other PV technologies, the knowledge base of crystalline silicon photovoltaics is very broad and solid. This is a result of intensive research in the PV sector itself, but certainly also of achievements in the semiconductor electronics sector over half a century of rapid growth. It is now time to harvest from this knowledge by bringing together a group of key players and making the crucial next step: developing a dedicated and advanced manufacturing process for cells and modules. The structure of an Integrated Project is ideally suited for this, since in fact integration of knowledge in the entire consortium and integration of process steps have to make the difference.