Volume : V, Issue : XII, December - 2016

A Study of Thin Film Solar Cells and its Efficiency

Kavita R. Kolte

Abstract :

 ?e Earth receives only one billionth of the sun‘s colossal power output, but, even this tiny fraction provides the Earth with more energy in one hour than all the energy consumed by humans in an entire year. ?is has led scientists for decades to develop solar cells. ?e second generation thin film solar cells are much thinner than the first generation crystalline silicon solar cells and have many advantages. ?ey are easy to handle, offer great design flexibility for a variety of applications, has shorter energy payback time suitable for high energy production and is much cheaper than other cells. ?in film technology uses various photovoltaic substances like amorphous silicon, cadmium telluride, copper indium and gallium selenide. Each type of material is suitable for different types of solar applications and has different values of efficiency. ?e efficiency and fill factor of CIGS thin film solar cell is much higher than other thin film cells. ?e best CIGS and CdTe–based small–area thin film polycrystalline solar cells have reached laboratory efficiencies of 16– 17%, which are approximately 80% of their theoretical maximum efficiencies. However, despite these achievements, commercial products based on these materials are not yet available because the fundamental research conducted so far has focused on improvements in efficiency. Now, however, the focus must shift to issues relevant to manufacturability.

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Article: Download PDF   DOI : 10.36106/ijsr  

Cite This Article:

Kavita R. Kolte, A Study of Thin Film Solar Cells and its Efficiency, International Journal of Scientific Research, Volume : 5 | Issue : 12 |December 2016

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