Solar cell manufacturing at the edge to sustainable industrial production

PV industry needs to establish sustainable, i.e. technological and economical fit, productions like other established industry branches. Two things are the important base of this new era of solar cell and module production: i) completely integrated production concepts with optimised utilisation and logistics of (material and human) resources and products, and ii) production control systems including quality and cost management meeting the demands of mass production and the long term warranty requirement. We have implemented an archetype of such a factory for solar cells with a total production capacity of 60 MW/sub p/ per year. It features a specially designed facility, computer aided manufacturing, process and material flow monitoring, and continuous in-line inspection, ensuring highest possible productivity, quality, and quality assurance in closed loop control.