Analysis and evaluation of processes and equipment in Tasks II and IV of the Low-Cost Solar Array Project. Quarterly report, August-October 1978

Technical Report · Mon Jan 01 04:00:00 EST 1979

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/5930850· OSTI ID:5930850

Wolf, M

The manufacturing methods for photovoltaic solar energy utilization systems consist, in complete generality, of a sequence of individual processes. This process sequence has been logically segmented into five major work areas: reduction and purification of the semiconductor material, sheet or film generation, device generation, module assembly and encapsulation, and system completion, including installation of the array and the other subsystems. For silicon solar arrays, each work area has been divided into 10 generalized processes in which certain required modifications of the work-in-process are performed. In general, more than one method is known by which such modifications can be carried out. The various methods for each individual process are identified as process options. In the search to achieve improved process sequences for producing silicon solar cell modules, numerous options have been proposed and/or developed, and will still be proposed and developed in the future. It is a near necessity to be able to evaluate such proposals for their technical merits relative to other known approaches, for their economic benefits, and for other techno-economic attributes such as energy consumption, generation and disposal of waste by-products, etc. A methodology for the objective comparative evaluation of competing subsystem design or manufacturing process options is described. The evaluation criterion is the cost of the energy delivered from the system. A requirement for the analysis is, that the subsystems or process options to be evaluated are functionally comparable. The evaluations are based on differences in cost and performance (efficiency) for the subsystem designs, and on differences in cost, efficiency contribution, and yield for manufacturing process options. (WHK)

• Research Organization: Pennsylvania Univ., Philadelphia (USA). Moore School of Electrical Engineering
• DOE Contract Number: NAS-7-100-954796
• OSTI ID: 5930850
• Report Number(s): DOE/JPL/954796-5
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

14 SOLAR ENERGY
140501* -- Solar Energy Conversion-- Photovoltaic Conversion
COMPARATIVE EVALUATIONS
COST
DIRECT ENERGY CONVERTERS
ECONOMICS
EFFICIENCY
ENCAPSULATION
EVALUATION
FILMS
MANUFACTURING
PERFORMANCE
PHOTOELECTRIC CELLS
PHOTOVOLTAIC CELLS
PROCESSING
PURIFICATION
SHEETS
SILICON SOLAR CELLS
SOLAR CELL ARRAYS
SOLAR CELLS