SiLEAN | Silicon solar cells with Low Environmental footprint and Advanced interfaces

Summary
The SiLEAN project, involving 2 research institutes, one University partner, 4 SMEs and 1 industry partner, deals with the development of advanced innovations to tackle the major drawbacks of silicon heterojunction solar cell technology, namely the high energy and material demand for Si wafer manufacturing, limited current generation, and the consumption of scarce materials like silver, bismuth and indium. Within the scope of the project, we will directly grow the wafers from the gas phase with low temperature processes, apply alternative passivation concepts that show higher optical transparency, develop indium-free contact layers and apply silver and bismuth-free metallization with all-in-one cell interconnection and encapsulation. We aim to achieve >25.5% solar cell efficiency and >23.5% module efficiency with 50% lower costs for Si wafers and contacting, as well as up to 75% lower carbon footprint. All processes applied allow upscaling to larger sizes as well as high manufacturing throughput. Eventually, the developments of SiLEAN will pave the way for a new, lean, generation of heterojunction solar cell technology that will both increment the energy conversion efficiency and unlock production at terawatt-scale.
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More information & hyperlinks
Web resources: https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101147275
Start date: 01-05-2024
End date: 30-04-2027
Total budget - Public funding: 2 996 153,75 Euro - 2 996 153,00 Euro
Cordis data

Original description

The SiLEAN project, involving 2 research institutes, one University partner, 4 SMEs and 1 industry partner, deals with the development of advanced innovations to tackle the major drawbacks of silicon heterojunction solar cell technology, namely the high energy and material demand for Si wafer manufacturing, limited current generation, and the consumption of scarce materials like silver, bismuth and indium. Within the scope of the project, we will directly grow the wafers from the gas phase with low temperature processes, apply alternative passivation concepts that show higher optical transparency, develop indium-free contact layers and apply silver and bismuth-free metallization with all-in-one cell interconnection and encapsulation. We aim to achieve >25.5% solar cell efficiency and >23.5% module efficiency with 50% lower costs for Si wafers and contacting, as well as up to 75% lower carbon footprint. All processes applied allow upscaling to larger sizes as well as high manufacturing throughput. Eventually, the developments of SiLEAN will pave the way for a new, lean, generation of heterojunction solar cell technology that will both increment the energy conversion efficiency and unlock production at terawatt-scale.

Status

SIGNED

Call topic

HORIZON-CL5-2023-D3-02-11

Update Date

06-11-2024
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Horizon Europe
HORIZON.2 Global Challenges and European Industrial Competitiveness
HORIZON.2.5 Climate, Energy and Mobility
HORIZON.2.5.2 Energy Supply
HORIZON-CL5-2023-D3-02
HORIZON-CL5-2023-D3-02-11 Advanced concepts for crystalline Silicon technology