Tier 1 solar cell maker from China bets on Rena-SoLayTec equipment

Oct 29, 2013 - German engineering specialist Rena GmbH said Monday that a Chinese tier 1 solar cell maker had made a repeat order for the RENA-SoLayTec machine as it moves to mass production of passivated emitter and rear cells (PERC) solar cells.

The equipment has been developed by Rena and Dutch firm SoLayTec, a spin-off from the Dutch research organisation TNO that develops, delivers and services machines for atomic layer deposition (ALD) on solar cells globally.

The unnamed Chinese customer previously tested the ALD aluminum oxide (Al2O3) layer InPassion LAB tool from RENA-SoLayTec in its research and development division. Using the Al2O3 passivation process, the has reached average conversion efficiency of above 20% with p-type monocrystalline silicon wafers, Rena said. Now the Chinese firm will move to mass production using that technology.

According to Rena’s calculations, the cell efficiency improvement of Al2O3 from RENA-SoLayTec leads to an increase of as much as 1.0% efficiency gain.

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