China: High efficiency crystalline Si solar cells

With the huge energy consumption and greenhouse CO2 emission globally, the demand for renewable energy is rapidly increasing. The last decade, solar photovoltaics (PV) converting solar energy into high value electricity has shown great promise in becoming a significant source of electricity globally in the near future. Already 2% of electricity in Germany needs are covered by PV. Large numbers of solar PV panels and solar farms have been installed in the past and will be installed in the coming years. Glo bally, approximately 16 GWp (peak Watt) of solar electricity power capacity will be installed in 2010. Meanwhile, almost half of the solar PV panels in the market are produced in China. And Chinese PV production capacity is increasing. China will be the l argest PV producer in the near future. Therefore, it will be of strategically importance to IFE to cooperate with one of the best solar cell research groups in China as well as with a large Chinese solar cell producer. This project aims at building cooper ation between the Institute for Energy Technology (IFE), Norway and Institute of Electrical Engineering (IEE), Chinese academy of science, China and Solarfun Power Holdings Ltd (Solarfun), China, on high efficiency crystalline Si solar cell research. The issues related to industrial relevance high efficiency crystalline Si solar cells, such as surface passivation, selective emitter, back contact and others as well as the specific competancies of each group will be discussed. In addition, a workshop with I FE, IEE and Solarfun on high efficiency crystalline Si solar cells will be held. In the end, one or more research projects on highly efficient solar cells will be defined with identified funding plans, both Norwegian and Chinese.