By Ryan Kennedy
Excerpt:
”Solar Inventions, based in Atlanta, Georgia, announced it has been awarded patents in the United States, China, and Israel for its invention of a novel architecture for PV cells and modules.
Dr. Ben Damiani, chief technology officer, Solar Inventions, discovered that a manufacturer can create multiple “lanes” or subcells on a single wafer by electrically dividing each cell during the metalization process.
The process, called Configurable Current Cells (C3) requires no capital expenditure or process change for solar cell manufacturers to implement. For cell manufacturers, C3 requires only small changes in metalization print patterns and selective doping.
The process creates a new architecture that makes improvements on cell, module, and system performance while saving up to 18% of the silver required. This equates to $2 million to $5 million in savings per GW at prevailing silver prices. Silver typically represents about 10% of a solar module cost structure.”
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