Weekly renewables M&A round-up (May 23-27)
May 27, 2022 17:26 CESTSeptember 6 (Renewables Now) - Researchers have found that production costs of solar cells can be reduced by more than 10% by moving to dry-etched black silicon (black-Si) passive emitter rear cells (PERC).
The study was conducted by engineers at Michigan Technological University and Finland's Aalto University, and published Energies.
A news release this week by Michigan Tech explains that common etching to reduce reflected light gives most solar panels their blue color. Dry etching, however, which etches a silicon surface into a forest of nanoscale needles, makes black silicon (black-Si) more efficient at capturing light than standard etching. While the resulting surface defects impact electrical performance, this is mitigated by treating the silicon with an appropriate atomic layer deposition (ALD) coating.
It would have been expected that black-Si cells from dry etching and ALD are too costly for practical use. The research, however, showed that while the production costs of individual black-Si passive emitter rear cells (PERC) were 15.8% to 25.1% higher than those of conventional cells, the cost per unit power dropped by 10.8%. This is because the efficiency gains and the ability to use the less-expensive multicrystalline silicon as starting material far outweighed the additional costs.
Weekly renewables M&A round-up (May 23-27)
May 27, 2022 17:26 CESTDuke Energy equips Hawaii university with solar and storage
May 27, 2022 17:17 CESTUS stays atop EY renewables attractiveness index, Spain heads PPA chart
May 27, 2022 16:32 CESTSavannah Energy to develop up to 500 MW of renewables in Chad
May 27, 2022 16:08 CESTCelsia building 260 MW of solar farms in Colombia
May 27, 2022 15:51 CESTAgrana, RWA equip Austrian fruit juice concentrate plant with solar modules
May 27, 2022 15:36 CEST