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ECN publication
Title:
The effect of reduced silver paste consumption on the cost per Wp for tab-based modules and conductive-foil based modules
 
Author(s):
 
Published by: Publication date:
ECN Solar Energy 10-4-2015
 
ECN report number: Document type:
ECN-W--15-017 Article (scientific)
 
Number of pages:
12  

Published in: Energy Procedia (Elsevier), , 2015, Vol.67, p.163-174.

Abstract:
Currently Ag-paste consumption the most important cost factor for cell processing. Cell manufacturers are putting a great deal of effort into the reduction of Ag-paste usage. This leads to higher line resistances of the Ag-paste fingers and results in a trend in the photovoltaic market to apply more busbars per cell. More busbars mean more tabs in the module causing less resistive losses on module-level. In this work we perform cost-per-Wp computations using a model that treats cells and module in an integral way, based on analytical calculations. We show that the cost-per-Wp of tab-based modules can be reduced by applying lower and/or narrower Ag-paste fingers. We compare the reduced cost-per-Wp values of a tab-based module to an innovative conductive foil-based module. We show that the conductive foil-based module has a lower cost-per-Wp despite the extra cost of the foil. Furthermore, the use of lower and/or narrower fingers results in a further reduction of the cost-per-Wp values for the foil-based module as well.

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