Solarfabrik 2020


Vision
		A very promising approach for cost reduction is the in-line production of thin-film solar cells in a vacuum process, obviating the need for a complex handling between the process steps. In addition, PVD technologies can be expected to give coating costs of at maximum a few euros per square meter. A number of vacuum technologies which are required for the production of thin solar cells and which are suitable for in-line systems are already available today and have been implemented in industry. These are, for example, vacuum pretreatment and technologies for the deposition of insulating and barrier layers, metallic contacts, transparent electrodes, and anti-reflection and protective layers. For consistent implementation of the in-line approach, suitable technology for structuring in vacuum and high productivity processes for depositing the absorber must be developed. The figure schematically shows the long-term development objective, namely the in-line production of interconnected PV modules for large areas. The base processes and technologies which are available are shaded in gray. Development work which is planned for the medium term is colored red. The results should allow the visionary objective of the development work to be achieved in the further phases (yellow) of the development work.