Suniva Inc., a manufacturer of high value crystalline silicon solar cells, recently announced that its R&D team has developed several silicon solar cells with over 20% conversion efficiencies using a patented combination of simple cell designs and screen printing technologies. These high efficiency milestones have been verified by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), the U.S. Department of Energy’s premier laboratory for renewable energy and energy efficiency research and development. Following the company’s two recent customer agreements with Germany’s Solon AG and India’s Titan Energy Systems Ltd, together worth approximately USD$1 billion, this demonstrates “Suniva’s advanced technologies in diffusion, surface passivation and contacts increase conversion efficiency while reducing processing time and maintaining low cell cost.” according to Dr. Ajeet Rohatgi, its founder and CTO.

Suniva’s current ARTisun(TM) cell technology has produced a verified efficiency of 18.5% in the lab and its techniques can produce solar energy for 8 to 10 cents per KWh— a comparable price to conventional energy sources in the United States. Suniva can create a higher sheet resistance emitter as well as enhanced surface passivation dielectrics in a single high temperature step. It produces narrower screen-printed contacts on the front of the cell and a high-quality surface reflector on the back. These components, combined with improved texturing methodologies, allow it to trap light and achieve high efficiencies while keeping costs low.

Though it’s still time for long way to go before the cheap solar cells are on the market, this one is sure to be a cost-effective and environment friendly device & indeed worth being called a breakthrough in the cell technology.
Via Earth2Tech