European consortium bid to bring 25.4%-efficient heterojunction-IBC solar cell into mass production
The EU-funded Nextbase project aims to manufacture heterojunction, interdigitated back-contact solar modules for less than €0.275/W. Solar panels featuring the Nextbase cell tech are expected to have a conversion efficiency of 23.2%, according to the European Commission.
The Nextbase project backed by the European Commission with €3.8 million, unites European companies and research institutes aiming to manufacture solar panels with heterojunction (HTJ) and interdigitated back-contact (IBC) technology.
A statement issued by the commission said production equipment supplied by Swiss HJT company Meyer Burger would be used to produce 25.4%-efficient HTJ-IBC solar cells on a commercial scale.
That efficiency figure would constitute "a European record for an industrially-feasible version of IBC-SHJ [silicon heterojunction] technology," said project coordinator Kaining Ding, of German research center Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH, which is a partner in the initiative. Ding added: "The current laboratory world record for a silicon solar cell is 26.7%, which was also based on the IBC-SHJ concept but was very expensive to make. Our approach is close to the optimum level."
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