Cost-Effective Silicon Wafers for Solar Cells: Direct Wafer Enabling Terawatt Photovoltaics

Program Document · Fri Jan 15 04:00:00 EST 2010

OSTI ID:1046632

Broad Funding Opportunity Announcement Project: 1366 is developing a process to reduce the cost of solar electricity by up to 50% by 2020—from $0.15 per kilowatt hour to less than $0.07. 1366’s process avoids the costly step of slicing a large block of silicon crystal into wafers, which turns half the silicon to dust. Instead, the company is producing thin wafers directly from molten silicon at industry-standard sizes, and with efficiencies that compare favorably with today’s state-of-the-art technologies. 1366’s wafers could directly replace wafers currently on the market, so there would be no interruptions to the delivery of these products to market. As a result of 1366’s technology, the cost of silicon wafers could be reduced by 80%.

• Research Organization: 1366 Technologies
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Advanced Research Projects Agency - Energy (ARPA-E)
• OSTI ID: 1046632
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

ARPA-E
Funding Opportunity Announcement
Renewable Power Generation