22nd EU PVSEC Technical Highlights

[Milan, Italy]

Over 3,000 22nd European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition attendees this year.

Here is Dr. Heinz Ossenbrink’s presentation of the highlights from his perspective of the 22nd EU PVSEC. This is based on presentations he himself attended. This is a very cool approach in my opinion.

Either review the Picasa screen capture slideshow or read on.

Some Highlights of the 22nd European Photovoltaic Conference and Exhibition

Milan, Italy

3-7 September 2007

Dr. Heinz Ossenbrink
Technical Programme Chairman
European Commission, DG Joint Research Centre
Ispra, Italy

Advanced Photovoltaics
•M. Green: 74% Limiting Efficiency for Si-Tandem Quantum Dot Cells
–Dot/Matrix Combinations (SiO₂;Si₃N₄;SiC)
–Modelling with a 240 GFlop Cluster
–Demonstrator 2008?
•Spectrolab
–GaInP/GaInAs/Ge: 40.7% achieved
–Average in Production 37%; 43% by 2015
•DARPA Towards 50% efficiency
–hollow Pyramids 42.9%, Spectrally Selective Mirrors, 6-j cell 42.2% achieved

Advanced Photovoltaics (2)
•Uni Eindhoven: Dye Luminiscent Solar Concentrators
–Alignment of Dye molecules improves Coupling
•FhG-ISE: Organic Dye Cells, 5.7% on 30x30
–Cost Potential 46€/m²; Toxicity of Ruthenium?
•Uni Stuttgart:
–Theoretical Model for Charge Separation (Bipolar,Exitonic and Bulk Solar Cells)
–Excellent presentation of a rather dry & theoretical content!
•Konarka: flexible polymer cells in pilot scale
^–~3%, cost target <30€/m²

Wafer-Based Silicon Solar Cells and Materials
•Sanyo (JP): HIT cell
–number of improvements yield record 22.3% on 100 cm²
•Sunpower US): 165 µm/ interdigitated Backcontact
–Very clear loss analysis, fine improvement 20.1% Module Efficiency for a 328W module. Announced 250 MW/yr 2008
•ECN (NL): Rear emitter cell with n-type Si
–17.4% achieved on Cz-Si
–14.4% on mc-Si

Wafer-Based Si Solar Cells and Materials (2)
•Burger (CH) Wafer slicing
–down to 160 um pitch, 80 µm wafers, 10 wafers/min Slurry viscosity studied
•FhG-ISE (DE): Back-contact early analysis
–Using commercial photoflash
–good, simple, reproducible, theoretical background well presented
•Uni Konstanz (DE): RGS horizontal Ribbon
–12% on 10x10 cm² screen printed
–Si-Consumption: <3g/Wp (130m/10.6%)

Wafer-Based Si Solar Cells and Materials (3)
•Utrecht (NL): LCA on recent Si technologies
–EPbT: <1.7 yrs; CO₂ emissions can be reduced to 15 g/kWh (Ambiente Italia: <33 g/kWh)
•Wacker (DE): Si Feedstock overview
–Global supply/demand 100..200 kt by 2010
–TriChloroSilane process
–2006 6.5 by 2010 22 kt
–Energy from Si: 2005: 3 GWh/t Si; 2010: 7.5 GWh/t
–Costs down from 2000: -46%
–Missing information: Prices 2010?

Thin Films
•Applied Materials (US&DE)
–Single-j, 1cm² : a-Si 9.7%; µc-Si 7.7%
–Reactor in operation, 10.4% avg on µc-Si/a-Si tandem 1.4 m²
–Upscale to 5.7 m² (!) for a stabilised 460 W module
•Oerlikon (CH/AT)
–best 1.4 m² a-Si: 9.6%, stabilised -20%
–Production system with 20 reactors
–micromorph: 1.4 m² : 9.46% last Monday, exp. stable 10..15% less

Thin Films (2)
•HMI (DE) EU ATHLET project,
–a row of Thin Film technologies
–flexible CIGS: 15% on 27 cm², 12.4 on 100 cm² (Avancis), polymer foil comes next
•Wuerth (DE), CIS
–Production on 15MW capacity, almost 13% on 0.6x1.2 m²; EPbT 1.5 y; Rates better than x-Si
•Sulfurcell (DE), CIS
–start-up with ~8%, 0.65x1.25 m² module, cycle time <5 min
•JRC (EC) & NREL (US)
–see currently investments for 3700 MW Thin-Film Capacity by 2010/11

Components for PV Systems
•European PERFORM Project
–wide and efficient collaboration to harmonise assessment of TRUE PV performance
•Ben Gurion (IL)
–New, simple and practical Algorithm for Module Temperature Estimation
•SLIVER (AU) Sliced & Stacked Solar Cells
–Module Fillfactor of >80% (!)
•Deutsche Solar (DE) PV CYCLE Association
–Take-back system, for Waste Streams, Module Collection & Recycling

PV Systems
•BSW (DE): Analysis of German PV Systems:
–Roof-top dominates
–Large Ground-based Systems coming
•(40 MW; <3.25 €/W)
–BIPV disappointing small, but not in France!
•Freiburg (DE) Good Architecture (Disch),
–Urban Apartment blocks, 500 kW distributed
–Thorough analysis of Generation and Load Profiles
•Sunpower (US): Performance of 70 MW installed
–yield 1500 kWh/kWp
–Effect of soiling studied, ~5% gain if washed

PV Deployment
•Soleco (SE) Largest Village Electrification
–Sri Lanka, 500 out of 11000 villages electrified
•Greece: Feed-in-Tariff 0.40..0.50 €/kWh
–4300 Aplication since last year, more than 4 times more than planned!
–Eased approval procedure: (almost) none for <150 kW
•Italy: Feed-in-Tariff ~0.40 €/kWh
–32 MW operational, 200 MW in construction
–objective 3000 MW in 2016
–remarkable combination with Electricity efficiency: FiT+30%

Even More Condensed Matter...
•Production Capacity is growing rapidly
•Thin-Film production is growing even faster
•Technology Competition to Si-Feedstock
•Short Laboratory to Production Cycles
•PV assessments more reliable:
–Performance
–Grid interface
–Environmental Impact
•More Countries create Installation and Production boom through adoption of Feed-In Laws; create high-value jobs

We hope you have enjoyed the programme!

Thank you for coming to Milan

See you again next year at the 23^rd!

in (this was a tease before Peter Helm announced the location to attendees).

[As disclosed here yesterday, the 23rd EU PVSEC will be in Valencia, Spain.]

Thanks to Dr.Ossenbrink who provided a copy of his overview on the spot. Last year in Dresden, I typed this in from the highlights handout myself. In fact, I liked and sometimes video taped the presentations mentioned above. For example, I also found the Luminiscent concentrator and SLIVER solar cell presentations of particular interest.

A complete overview of the 22nd EU PVSEC Closing Session including poster winners will be the next post. I am very tired and have tasted sufficient Italiano Vino for today. Grazie!