€4.6M EU project aims for 25 percent CIGS efficiency
A new European research project, coordinated by the Centre for Solar Energy and Hydrogen Research Baden- Wuerttemberg (ZSW), is setting out to make an extremely efficient thin-film solar cell for the next generation of more cost-effective solar modules.
Called Sharc25, the project's aim is to achieve up to 25 percent efficiency in thin-film solar cells made by the coevaporation of copper indium gallium (di)selenide (CIGS). Such performance would top the previous best mark by over three percentage points.
The project will run for 3.5 years and get €4.6 million in EU funding sourced from the research framework program Horizon 2020. The Swiss government is providing another €1.6 million.
ZSW's partners are the EMPA (Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology), the universities of Luxembourg, Rouen, Parma and Aalto, the IMEC, the HZB (Helmholtz- Zentrum Berlin fuer Materialien und Energis), the International Iberian Nanotechnology Laboratory INL, Flisom AG, and Manz CIGS Technology GmbH.
The performance of thin-film solar cells based on chalcopyrite has improved markedly in recent years. Able to achieve 20.4 percent efficiency, CIGS solar cells on plastic foil are almost on par with multicrystalline solar cells.
CIGS cells on glass topped that mark for the first time in 2013 and increased their lead by 1.3 percentage points to 21.7 per- cent in 2014. These two world records were achieved by two partners of the Sharc25 project: EMPA holds the record for the foil substrate and ZSW for glass.
Sharc25, an acronym for 'super high efficiency Cu(In, Ga)Se2 thin-film solar cells approaching 25 percent,' aims to raise the bar higher. The five research institutes, four universities and two companies are pursuing three strategies to achieve this goal: Improve the absorber material, harness the power of new designs for more efficient surfaces and inter faces, and optimise light management to raise the efficiency threshold another few notches. An increase of about three percentage points to 25 percent efficiency would be quite the leap in performance.
An improvement on this scale would challenge the dominance of multicrystalline solar cells from Asia, and the newfound competitive edge could give the European thin-film PV industry a decisive boost. This project's mission also calls for the scientists to devise a strategy for translating research results into industrial applications.
If the solar industry succeeds in applying the technology, the hope is that the cost of manufacturing solar modules in Europe could drop below 35 Eurocents per watt peak and the cost of installed PV systems to below 60 Eurocents per watt peak. Further savings could be achieved by ramping up the new technology for mass production. This would drive down investment costs, for example, to less than 75 Eurocents per watt peak for solar CIGS module factories with more than 100 MW manufacturing capacity.
This project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 641004.
