Skip to main content
U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Perspective on photovoltaic amorphous silicon

Conference ·
OSTI ID:10148632
Amorphous silicon is a thin film option that has the potential for a cost-effective product for large-scale utility photovoltaics application. The initial efficiencies for single-junction and multijunction amorphous silicon cells and modules have increased significantly over the past 10 years. The emphasis of research and development has changed to stabilized efficiency, especially that of multijunction modules. NREL has measured 6.3%--7.2% stabilized amorphous silicon module efficiencies for US products, and 8.1% stable efficiencies have been reported by Fuji Electric. This represents a significant increase over the stabilized efficiencies of modules manufactured only a few years ago. An increasing portion of the amorphous silicon US government funding is now for manufacturing technology development to reduce cost. The funding for amorphous silicon for photovoltaics by Japan over the last 5 years has been about 50% greater than that in the United State, and by Germany in the last 2--3 years more than twice that of the US Amorphous silicon is the only thin-film technology that is selling large-area commercial modules. The cost for amorphous silicon modules is now in the $4.50 range; it is a strong function of plant production capacity and is expected to be reduced to $1.00--1.50/W{sub p} for plants with 10 MW/year capacities. 10 refs.
Research Organization:
National Renewable Energy Lab., Golden, CO (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
DOE Contract Number:
AC02-83CH10093
OSTI ID:
10148632
Report Number(s):
NREL/TP--412-4796; CONF-9205115--2; ON: DE92010581
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

Similar Records

Perspective on photovoltaic amorphous silicon
Conference · Fri May 01 00:00:00 EDT 1992 · OSTI ID:5292942

Perspective on photovoltaic amorphous silicon
Conference · Mon Nov 30 23:00:00 EST 1992 · AIP Conference Proceedings (American Institute of Physics); (United States) · OSTI ID:6684138

Advances in amorphous silicon photovoltaic technology
Journal Article · Thu Oct 01 00:00:00 EDT 1998 · Journal of Materials Research · OSTI ID:664673