Thin film PV manufacturing: Materials costs and their optimization

Thin film PV technologies face a number of hurdles as they advance towards low-cost goals that would make them competitive with traditional sources of electricity. The US Department of Energy cost goal for thin films is about $0.33/Wp, which corresponds to module efficiencies of about 15% and module manufacturing costs of about $50/m2. Past papers have provided a framework for examining thin film efficiencies and manufacturing costs, especially those costs for equipment, labor, materials, utilities, and others. Although materials costs appear to be a large fraction of the total, we have not yet broken them down in enough detail to seek significant improvement. In the future, with more mature thin film production, materials costs such as those from semiconductor layers, contacts, pottants, substrates, and electrical interconnection will dominate total module cost. This paper (1) breaks down the materials costs into two broad categories (active and inactive materials) and then (2) investigates the issues associated with reducing their costs much below todayʹs levels. Materials will likely be such an overwhelming cost-driver for mature manufacturing of thin film PV that issues associated with their optimization should be examined as soon as possible in order to meet the DOE long-term goals for PV module costs.