Progress in research and mass production of large-scale thin film Si solar cells

Over the past decade, the PV industry has witnessed tremendous growth in manufacturing scale and technology advancement, with PV generated electricity cost ever approaching grid parity. Among them, amorphous Si based thin film technology has made substantial progress in demonstrating its inherent advantages in lower material cost, ease of manufacturing and higher energy yield, etc. More recently, reduced product prices and competing technologies from crystalline silicon and other thin film technologies have made amorphous and microcrystalline silicon based thin film technology very challenging, and requires further increase in module efficiency and decrease in manufacturing cost. As one of the few companies in the world with significant manufacturing capacity for thin film Si PV products, Chint Solar has been at the forefront of technology development for the mass production of large-scale (Gen. 5, 1.43m2) Si thin film solar modules in the last 5 years. We will review major technology advancements which have led to the mass produced tandem silicon thin film module with 10.0% plus stabilized efficiency, along with the field performance of those modules.