Progress in amorphous silicon tandem modules at Energy Photovoltaics, Inc

Over the past two years, EPV has directed its manufacturing research efforts toward enhancing the productivity of its tandem amorphous silicon (a-Si) photovoltaic module process. One major area of focus has been on streamlining the process to reduce the amount of time and complexity to manufacture a module by eliminating or combining process steps. In addition, significant effort has been put into improving the performance of the standard a-Si tandem module. This work has identified and developed process changes that have lead to a -20% increase in module power, with the largest contributors being the implementation of a zinc oxide/aluminum back reflector and significant increases of active area. As a result of these productivity and process improvements, the direct manufacturing cost per watt of an EPV module in the New Jersey facility has decreased by over 27%.