From R&D to Mass Production of Micromorph Thin Film Silicon PV

Developments in small R&D KAITM systems have resulted in NREL-confirmed stabilised cell efficiencies of 10.09% for amorphous p-i-n and 11.91% for Micromorph tandem devices. Up-scaling of the processes to 1.4 m2 R&D equipment has so far lead to modules having initial powers of 139.1 W for amorphous silicon and 163 W for Micromorph tandem respectively. At present Oerlikon customers produced in total more than 4.5 million modules (a-Si:H p-i-n or Micromorph tandem) which all together correspond to a cumulative total power of over 450 MWp. Recently Oerlikon Solar introduced its new improved production concept, the so-called ThinFabTM, which brings module production costs down to remarkable 0.5 €/Wp at a capacity of 120 MWp.