Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
BP up to 2001. This is an outstanding achievement in thin-film
solar panel manufacturing, but BP terminated this technology in
2001-2002 together with several other Si technologies as part of a
rationalisation programme. This project successfully demonstrated
the possibilities for full-scale manufacturing of
∼
1m
2
solar panels
using electrodeposition.
The author was working in the research and development
team of this solar panel at BP-Research Sunbury, London, in the
late 1980s. Later, he continued his research at She
eld Hallam
Universityand,overthepast20years,hasexploredthedeepscience
behind the electrodeposited materials and PV devices. After com-
prehensive work carried out in many aspects of solar cells, six new
patents have been secured based on new findings and results have
been openly published [9, 10] for CBD grown CdS/electrodeposited
CdTe solar cells. In this work, a new device concept was proposed,
based on a combination of n-n hetero-junction and a large Schottky
diode in the device instead of conventional p-n junction structure
[10]. The details of this development and the new model proposed
for high e
ciency solar cells are presented in chapter 4.
First Solar announced in 2008 the achievement of US$1/W
for thin-film solar panels based on vacuum-evaporated CdTe.
This company is now leading with thin-film CdTe solar panels,
exceeding 1 GW production in the year 2009. Electrodeposited
CdTe solar panels show high potential for further reduction of the
manufacturing cost, well below US$1/W.
2.6 Emerging Low-Cost Thin-Film Technologies
The alternative to expensive Si solar panels may come from thin-
film solar cells based on CdTe, CIGS, DSSC, and organic solar
cells. These four new technologies use simple techniques such
as electrodeposition, chemical bath deposition (CBD), and screen
printing for materials growth and temperatures below 500
◦
C
for device processing. These methods also minimise the use of
expensivevacuumsystems.Themanufacturingofthesesolarpanels
needs only one production line in addition to required precursors,
