Both companies have announced they plan to accelerate the development of thin-film solar cells, in an effort to increase efficiency by 50% from its current levels.
So far Schott and Ersol have experience in the thin film industry: Schott has sold its ASI modules for years while ersol has sold thin film panels called Nova T Series. Now both companies will pool R&D resources in order to develop a micromorphous thin-film module with a double-layer structure consisting of an amorphous and a microcrystalline film. They expect that this results in improved cell efficiency as it results in two layers of silicon converting the entire light spectrum into power. Both firms have already launched a first initiative in the thin-film industry with their Gen 5 format.
"We believe that this so-called micromorphous tandem cell can achieve up to 50 per cent increase in module efficiency and therefore also in the module yield in comparison to amorphous technology," said Dr Christian Koitzsch, MD of technology at ersol Thin Film GmbH.
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