Solar Cells and Their Applications

Lewis M. Fraas, Larry D. Partain

• Publisher: Wiley
• Year: 2010
• ISBN:
  9781118024058
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Technology & Engineering
• Subtopic: Power Resources
• Index: Technology & Engineering

A major update of solar cell technology and the solar marketplace

Since the first publication of this important volume over a decade ago, dramatic changes have taken place with the solar market growing almost 100-fold and the U.S. moving from first to fourth place in the world market as analyzed in this Second Edition. Three bold new opportunities are identified for any countries wanting to improve market position. The first is combining pin solar cells with 3X concentration to achieve economic competitiveness near term. The second is charging battery-powered cars with solar cell–generated electricity from arrays in surrounding areas—including the car owners' homes—while simultaneously reducing their home electricity bills by over ninety percent. The third is formation of economic "unions" of sufficient combined economic size to be major competitors.

In this updated edition, feed-in tariffs are identified as the most effective approach for public policy. Reasons are provided to explain why pin solar cells outperform more traditional pn solar cells. Field test data are reported for nineteen percent pin solar cells and for ~500X concentrating systems with bare cell efficiencies approaching forty percent. Paths to bare cell efficiencies over fifty percent are described, and key missing program elements are identified. Since government support is needed for new technology prototype integration and qualification testing before manufacturing scale up, the key economic measure is identified in this volume as the electricity cost in cents per kilowatt-hour at the complete installed system level, rather than just the up-front solar cell modules' costs in dollars per watt.

This Second Edition will benefit technologists in the fields of solar cells and systems; solar cell researchers; power systems designers; academics studying microelectronics, semiconductors, and solar cells; business students and investors with a technical focus; and government and political officials developing public policy.

Part I: INTRODUCTION TO SOLAR CELLS

1

SOLAR CELLS: A BRIEF HISTORY AND INTRODUCTION

LEWIS FRAAS¹ AND LARRY PARTAIN²

¹JX Crystals Inc.,

²Varian Medical Systems

1.1 BRIEF HISTORY

The history of the solar cell is really quite interesting [1]. In 1839, Edmond Becquerel found that two different brass plates immersed in a liquid produced a continuous current when illuminated with sunlight. We now believe that he had made a copper-cuprous oxide thin-film solar cell. Later in the 1870s, Willoughby Smith, W. G. Adams, and R. E. Day discovered a PV effect in selenium. A few years later, an American named C. E. Fritts placed a sheet of amorphous selenium on a metal backing and covered the selenium with a transparent gold leaf film. He reported that this selenium array produced a current “that is continuous, constant, and of considerable force—with exposure to sunlight.” At the time, there was no quantum theory and there was considerable skepticism about his claim of converting sunlight into electricity. So he sent a sample to Werner Siemens in Germany, who was one of the most respected experts in electricity at the time. Siemens’s observation verified Fritts’s claims. However, the conversion efficiencies of both the thin-film cuprous oxide and the amorphous selenium solar cells were less than 1%.

Around 75 years passed while quantum mechanics was discovered, the importance of single-crystal semiconductors was recognized, and p/n junction behavior was explained (see Chapter 3). By 1954, Chapin et al. [2] at Bell Labs had discovered, invented, and demonstrated the silicon single-crystal solar cell with 6% efficiency. Over the few following years, researchers brought the silicon solar cell efficiency up to 15%. The timing was fortunate because Sputnik was launched in 1957 and solar cells were the perfect lightweight low-maintenance remote electric power source. Today, silicon solar cells are being used to power the space station.

The solar cell industry remained small until the first Arab oil embargo in 1973. Up until that time, the solar cell industry established a firm foothold with low-level but consistent cell and array production and performance. During those first 20 years, reliability was the driver and cost was not as important. After 1973, the flat-plate silicon module was brought down to earth and modified for weather resistance. This transition also included major improvements in cell and module fabrication that brought down costs dramatically (Fig. 2.3, chapter 2). Flat-plate “champion” silicon cell efficiencies (defined in Section 2.1, Chapter 2) have improved to values as high as 25%. Production module efficiencies have improved from around 10% for early modules to as high as 19% today (SunPower Corporation). Most important, annual production quantities have grown dramatically. Worldwide production exceeded 1 GW/year in 2002 and rose to over 3.8 GW/year by 2006 (Fig. 2.1, Chapter 2).

In the late 1970s, it was discovered that good cells could be made with multicrystalline wafers as long as the crystal size is at least 20 times larger than the optical absorption length [3]. Only those carriers within an optical absorption length from the crystal boundaries are lost. This is less than 5% of the carriers. Typical production quantity multicrystalline cell efficiencies are around 14%, whereas comparable single-crystal cells have efficiencies around 15%. By 2007, modules with multicrystalline cells accounted for about 45% of sales and modules with single-crystal cells accounted for about 40% of sales. Planar silicon cell modules dominated the market in 2007 because of their early well-funded foundation years for space satellites and their huge learning curve support (Fig. 2.3, Chapter 2) from single-crystal silicon and integrated circuit technology development.

While silicon-based cells still dominate the solar cell electricity market today, several other cell types have now entered the market. (Solar cells are also known as PV cells.) These newer cell types have added diversity in potential applications as well as offered alternate paths to lower-cost solar electric power. These alternate cell types include hydrogenated amorphous silicon, cadmium teluride and CIGS thin-film cells (Chapter 6), as well as concentrator cells with efficiencies as high as 41% (Chapters 13–17).

1.2 APPLICATIONS AND MARKETS

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the traditional solar cell electricity applications [4] were at remote locations where utility power was unavailable, for example, campers and boats, temporary power needs for disaster situations, and power for remote communication station repeaters. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, solar cells began to be routinely used to provide site-specific energy for urban and suburban homes, office buildings, and a multitude of other mainstream grid-connected applications. Also, solar cell electricity systems have become very important sources of energy in the developing world. Today, for an increasing number of power needs, solar cell electricity is the cheapest and best way to generate electricity.

In addition to the solar power arrays on space satellites, there are now many different types of PV systems used here on Earth including

1. remote stand-alone without battery storage,

2. remote stand-alone with battery storage,

3. small modules for calculators and toys,

4. residential grid connected with DC to AC inverter,

5. commercial grid connected with inverters, and

6. PV fields for utility power generation.

Remote solar water pumping is a nice example of stand-alone solar cell electricity where batteries are not needed. Solar water pumping is very desirable for crop irrigation, livestock watering, and clean water for remote villages. Solar water pumping systems are now installed around the world. The nice thing about this application is that underground water is pumped when the sun is shining. It can be immediately used for crop irrigation. In other areas, it can be pumped into tanks for livestock to drink. In third world countries, pumping underground water for people to drink provides cleaner water than surface water thereby limiting disease. This application is quite economical because the system is simple. Battery storage or DC to AC conversion is not necessary. Simple solar trackers are used to maximize pumping time. The electric motors driving the pumps have a threshold current that must be provided before they will operate. By tracking the sun, this power is provided from dawn to dusk, not just at around noon as would be the case without tracking. Another application where there is a good match with demand is for air conditioning in developed countries like the United States.

For many remote applications, storage is needed to store electric energy for when it is needed. Examples of these applications include off-grid cabins and remote communication repeater stations. For most solar cell applications where storage is needed, secondary or storage batteries are the best alternative. Generally, batteries should be deep discharge batteries such as marine batteries or motive power batteries. Forklift trucks and golf carts use large-capacity deep discharge batteries that are designed for long life and many discharge cycles. In addition to batteries, combination systems can be used to compensate for the fact that the sun does not always shine. A solar/wind combination is particularly good since quite often, either one or the other is available. Another combination system can be a solar–thermal cell electricity system. In this case, solar cells are located on your roof for generating electricity in the summer and infrared-sensitive PV cells (also known as TPV cells) are integrated into your heating furnace to generate electricity when it is cold and dark outside and you need heat to keep warm. In a TPV cell electricity system, a ceramic element is heated in the furnace flame and its glow in the infrared is converted to electricity by infrared-sensitive TPV cells [5].

Solar-powered calculators are another familiar application for solar cells. While the efficiencies of amorphous silicon solar cells are much lower than either single or multicrystalline cells, an advantage for thin-film cells is that they can be made with cell interconnections built into the process. This means that for applications like powering calculators where voltage but little current is required to run the calculator, amorphous silicon circuits are preferred to save on the cost of interconnecting multiple cells to provide voltage. Credit is due to the Japanese for recognizing this advantage and to the inventors of the amorphous silicon solar cell for making solar cells a common household item [6].

Today, more and more homes on the grid are using solar cell arrays to generate electricity to save on costs of peak electric power. The passage of the PURPA by the U.S. Congress made it possible for a small producer to install generating systems and to sell the power to the utility at a favorable price without the enormous amount of red tape usually required of a new electric power producer. Most states have now also passed net metering laws that allow the electric meter at a home to run both directions. However, at least in California, the utility charge can at most be reduced to zero and they never pay any net money to their customers who produce more electricity than they consume. This allows homeowners generating solar cell electricity to send energy to the grid if they are producing excess electricity with a credit from the utility so that they can use electric power from the grid on days without sufficient sunlight. An example of real cost savings with a solar cell electricity installation for a homeowner in San Jose, California, is shown in Figure 1.1 [7]. Figure 1.1 is for an actual case in 2003. Note in this figure that the utility electric rates are staged. While the homeowner pays a base rate of 13¢ per kilowatt hour that in itself is well above the national average. More importantly, the homeowner is paying twice that or 26¢ per kilowatt hour for his peak power. So his solar electric system is saving him money at the 26¢ per kilowatt hour rate.

Figure 1.1. When electric utility rates are staged, a homeowner with solar can displace electricity at the peak power rate as illustrated here. This example was originally presented by Akeen...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half title page
• Series page
• Title page
• Copyright page
• Preface
• Contributors
• Part I: INTRODUCTION TO SOLAR CELLS
• Part II: TERRESTRIAL SOLAR CELL ELECTRICITY
• Part III: TERRESTRIAL CONCENTRATOR SOLAR CELL SYSTEMS
• Part IV: SOLAR CELLS IN SPACE
• Part V: OTHER ASPECTS AND CONSIDERATIONS
• Part VI: THIN FILMS AND X-RAY IMAGER TECHNOLOGIES
• Part VII: SUMMARY
• Index
• WILEY SERIES IN MICROWAVE AND OPTICAL ENGINEERING