Amorphous solar cells: More solar energy for lower costs

Amorphous solar cells

Making cost effective solar panels is one of the aims of photovoltaic manufacturers. If more energy can be yielded from the panels, then it will drive costs down and make solar power more of an affordable power source.

One Dutch university has been doing exactly that. Delft University of Technology is reportedly engaging in research to increase the efficiency of amorphous solar cells from seven percent to nine percent.

Currently crystalline silicon is most commonly used in silicon solar cells which increases the production cost quite significantly, however there is a more economical type of solar panel using amorphous silicon and as such, production costs are much lower with amorphous silicon panels.

Amorphous silicon cells

Of course, there are drawbacks to using amorphous cells; they do not have as high a yield as the cells that use crystalline silicon. Crystalline silicon, while more expensive, has a comparative yield of about 18 percent compared to the (current) seven percent of the amorphous silicon cells.

The main reason that amorphous silicon panels don't yield as much is down to the Staebler-Wronski effect which reduces the yield from 10 percent to seven percent in the very first hours of sun exposure. Not much has been known about why this occurs and why seemingly only with the amorphous silicon solar panels.

However, if the Staebler-Wronski effect can be overcome, then the yield of amorphous silicon planes can increase, and once this is done it is hoped that they can replace crystalline silicon panels, bringing down costs all over the industry.

Gijs van Elzakker, a researcher at the university, believes this can be done by redesigning how the panels are made. Currently, the thin silicon film layers in the amorphous solar panels are made of silane gas (SiH4), but van Elzakker believes that the Staebler-Wronski effect can be alleviated by diluting the silane gas with hydrogen at an optimum ratio. In Van Elzakker's words, "We showed that the influence of the Staebler-Wronski effect can be considerably reduced in this way."

If it works - and the technique is being spearheaded by Inventus Technologies - then the costs of solar panels could be greatly reduced while at the same time increasing efficiency.

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