Integrated silicon thread solar cell

The solar grade silicon core fiber technology has been developed by Prof. Ursula Gibson in department of Physics at NTNU. This technology is an efficient and scalable method to make solar grade silicon with reduced fabrication cost by 50% compared to conventional methods. Conventional methods are based on energy intensive processes of refining silicon to solar grade ingot, that is then sawed to thin wafers and waste about half of the material and consequently the energy used to make them. Our technology is less energy intensive and use the whole starting silicon material to make the desired thread form. The threads are mono crystalline solar grade silicon that lead to solar cells with the same efficiency (20%) and lifetime(20years) as crystalline silicon solar panels. Furthermore, they have additional features like flexibility to be bend and wide range of incidence angle. These additional unique features open new niche applications for silicon thread solar cells in buildings, surface integration in vehicles and integrations in fabrics i.e. for tent products. Buildings are major consumers of energy and Building Integrated Photovoltaic(BIPV) reduce the carbon footprint significantly. The BIPV market is growing fast, but to reach its full potential, more emphasize should be put on aesthetic and multi functionality of BIPV. Our proposed product uniquely includes all these features. The PV roofing is still the largest segment of the BIPV market due to optimum solar angle on the pitched roofs for solar panels. Silicon thread solar cells can be integrated in existing roofing systems. There is also a high potential in glass and walling applications by our proposed solar cells because of the wide range of incidence angle.