Chasing the super cell
Sharc stands for Super-high efficiency Cu(In, Ga)Se2 thin-film solar cells. The project coordinated by Zentrum für Sonnenenergie- und Wasserstoff-Forschung Baden-Württemberg (ZSW) bundles the activities of eleven research institutions from eight countries.
The efficiency of chalcopyrite-based thin-film solar cells has significantly improved over the past years. With 20.4%, CIGS solar cells on foil substrates almost have reached the efficiency of multi-crystalline solar cells. CIGS on glass substrate have a headway since 2013; in 2014 this edge increased to 1.3 percent points to an efficiency of 21.7%. Both world records have been achieved by Sharc25 project partners. Swiss EMPA holds the record for cells on foil substrates while ZSW holds the record for glass-substrate CIGS.
Now Sharc25 is intended to further increase the efficiency. To reach this goal, the five research institutes, four universities and two commercial enterprises participating in the project pursuit three different strategies: Developing better absorber material, using new concepts for more efficient surfaces and boundary layers, and optimising the light management.
The planned efficiency improvement would increase the competitiveness of European solar cells against Asian multi-crystalline products which currently dominate the market. Thus, the project could give new impetus to the European thin-film photovoltaic industry. Likewise, the project is also designed to devise suggestions for the industrial implementation of the research results achieved. The transfer of these scientific results to the solar economy could contribute to drive the costs of industrial solar cell production down to less than 35 euro cent per watt and those of installed photovoltaic systems to less than 60 euro cent per watt peak. The desired consequence could be lower investment cost of less than 75 euro cent per watt for solar factories with more than 100 MW production capacity and further cost reduction potential through economies of scale.
The project has received funding of some €4.6 million from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 R&D programme. Participants are, besides ZSW, Swiss material research institute Empa, the universities of Luxembourg, Rouen, Parma and Aalto, Berlin-based material and energy research institute HZB, the National Iberian Nanotechnology Laboratory INL from Portugal as well as commercial companies Flisom AG (Switzerland) and Manz CIGS Technology GmbH (Germany).
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