Thin Film CIGS and CdTe Photovoltaic Technologies: Commercialization, Critical Issues, and Applications; Preprint

Conference · Sat Sep 01 04:00:00 EDT 2007

OSTI ID:917207

Ullal, H S; von Roedern, B

We report here on the major commercialization aspects of thin-film photovoltaic (PV) technologies based on CIGS and CdTe (a-Si and thin-Si are also reported for completeness on the status of thin-film PV). Worldwide silicon (Si) based PV technologies continues to dominate at more than 94% of the market share, with the share of thin-film PV at less than 6%. However, the market share for thin-film PV in the United States continues to grow rapidly over the past several years and in CY 2006, they had a substantial contribution of about 44%, compared to less than 10% in CY 2003. In CY 2007, thin-film PV market share is expected to surpass that of Si technology in the United States. Worldwide estimated projections for CY 2010 are that thin-film PV production capacity will be more than 3700 MW. A 40-MW thin-film CdTe solar field is currently being installed in Saxony, Germany, and will be completed in early CY 2009. The total project cost is Euro 130 million, which equates to an installed PV system price of Euro 3.25/-watt averaged over the entire solar project. This is the lowest price for any installed PV system in the world today. Critical research, development, and technology issues for thin-film CIGS and CdTe are also elucidated in this paper.

• Research Organization: National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO.
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE
• DOE Contract Number: AC36-99GO10337
• OSTI ID: 917207
• Report Number(s): NREL/CP-520-42058
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

14 SOLAR ENERGY
36 MATERIALS SCIENCE
AMORPHOUS SILICON
CADMIUM TELLURIDE
CAPACITY
COMMERCIALIZATION
COMPETITION
COPPER INDIUM DISELENIDE
MARKET
MODULE
PHOTOVOLTAIC POWER PLANTS
PRICES
PV
SILICON
SOLAR CELL
SOLAR ENERGY
Solar Energy - Photovoltaics
THIN FILM
THIN FILMS