Passivated Edge Technology
GENERIS PET – Deposition System for Edge Passivation to Improve Efficiencies of Cut Solar Cells
Half Cut/Multi Cut Cells and Shingle Cells
Passivated Edge Technology – Introduction
Solar modules comprising cut cells are meanwhile part of the standard portfolio of almost every solar module manufacturer and supplier, with an increasing trend towards half cut/multi cut cells and shingle technology. The shingle technology uses solar cells not only being cut in half but also into multiple strips (3, 4 to 8). By dividing the cells, the electrical resistance of the metallization decreases, leading to a higher efficiency of the solar modules in comparison to the use of full cells, e.g., M10, G12. This even overcompensates Voc losses caused by damaged edges after cutting processes.
However, each cut facilitates charge recombination processes occuring on the newly created unpassivated cut edges that ultimately lead to efficiency losses on cell level. In this regard, a further significant boost in module performance can be achieved by the Passivated Edge Technology (PET). This technology involves the deposition of a passivation layer on the cut edges which serves to recover the losses derived from cutting, enhances the overall performance of the cut cell and finally increases the efficiency gain of the module even further.
SINGULUS TECHNOLOGIES offers the new vacuum deposition system GENERIS PET, an industrialized solution for PET that is particularly characterized by high throughputs at low cost.
GENERIS PET Concept
After cell cutting, typically performed by a laser-based process, the half cells or cell stripes are bundled into stacks. The stack transfer and loading on the carrier tray of GENERIS PET is fully automated. A unique, in-house developed carrier tray design facilitates processing of several thousand cell parts (stripes) per tray due to the high packing density. In addition, it enables the deposition of the passivation layers to be restricted to the cut edges, thus preventing undesired wraparound of the passivation to the cell surfaces.
The GENERIS PET represents an industrialized inline solution for PET that can achieve half-cell throughputs of several GW per year, depending on the equipment configuration and is readily suitable for any crystalline solar cell technology. The universal GENERIS PET design allows for processing of all current and future wafer and cut formats. In addition, its stand-alone design features facile integration into existing solar cell and module manufacturing lines and fabs as well as utilization as a stand-alone tool along with the laser cutting tool.
In summary, the excellent passivation layer properties achieved by the GENERIS PET serve towards regaining up to 80% of the efficiency losses created on cell level by the cutting process compared to its unpassivated counterpart.
GENERIS PET Standard
The GENERIS PET STANDARD is the single sided version of the vacuum deposition system for medium size PET applications. It exhibits a small machine footprint and features fully automated substrate loading and unloading, a carrier tray capacity of 4,800 substrates and achieves an annual throughput of up to 600 MW for half cut cells.
GENERIS PET Advanced
The GENERIS PET ADVANCED is the inline version of the vacuum deposition system for high throughput PET applications and offers multiple carrier processing with integrated carrier return system. In addition to the fully automated substrate loading and unloading, it allows a carrier tray capacity of 7,200 substrates and achieves an annual throughput of up to 3 GW for half cut cells.
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