Meyer Burger, a Switzerland-based heterojunction solar module manufacturer, has established a new partnership with a consortium of high-profile research institutions with the aim to produce solar cells with efficiencies in excess of 30% in the future.
The company is working on the industrialization of perovskite tandem technology. To get the technology with super-high yields for mass production, the Swiss manufacturer has signed corresponding multi-year cooperation agreements with CSEM from Switzerland, Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin (HZB), the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE in Freiburg, and the Institute of Photovoltaics at the University of Stuttgart. The aim is to achieve a significant further increase in the energy yield of commercial solar modules.
“With a long tradition of proprietary development, Meyer Burger has an extensive portfolio of processes, technologies, and production techniques at its disposal for the potential mass production of tandem solar cells and modules in-house,” says Marcel König, Head of Research and Development at Meyer Burger. “This includes the essential manufacturing processes and machinery for silicon-based perovskite tandem solar cells, as well as corresponding solar modules with Meyer Burger’s proprietary SmartWire connection technology. In conjunction with the skills of our academic partners, this is a unique recipe for success.”
In the past, Meyer Burger already entered into collaborations to research perovskite technology, including with Oxford PV and has therefore already developed its own proprietary technological solutions. The company has already achieved a record efficiency of 29.6% for a 25-square-centimeter perovskite tandem solar cell. To achieve this, the Swiss researchers combined heterojunction silicon cells with perovskite structures.
“This outstanding result demonstrates the potential of silicon perovskite tandem cells to achieve high efficiencies. Although we still have a lot of work ahead of us, the industrialization of solar cells with an efficiency of over 30% is on the right track,” says Professor Christophe Ballif, Director of Sustainable Energy at CSEM.
The HZB has also been researching perovskite technology for a long time and has already achieved record, world-leading efficiencies in excess of 31% for laboratory tandem solar cells in combination with heterojunction and perovskite. Now, with Meyer Burger and other partners, it is to apply the results to the manufacturing of commercial products in the industry.
“By manufacturing in Europe, Meyer Burger creates high-quality jobs while making use of technologies developed in Europe,” says Professor Rutger Schlatmann, director of the Competence Center Photovoltaics Berlin PVcomB at HZB.
