How to realize the use of solar cells from the use of silver into aluminum

According to a large-scale non-ferrous net: "In the past month, our scientists have brought about historic changes in the structure and economics of solar cells," said Zac Puppini, president and chief executive officer of Natcore.

Solar cells become aluminum using silver, achieving significant cost savings

At the R&D center in Rochester, Natcore scientists have built a fully back-contact silicon heterojunction cell structure that completely eliminates the use of silver and replaces it with aluminum, and Natcore emphasizes that the use of aluminum will not cause performance loss.

A solar photovoltaic panel uses about 1/2 ounce of silver on average, which accounts for 11% of the total raw material cost of solar photovoltaic modules. The use of silver exceeds the 48% metal cost of solar cells.

It is important to realize cost savings from using silver to aluminum. Because silver has strong conductive properties, it is costly. Today, the price of silver is about US$15.28 per troy ounce, and the same amount of aluminum is only US$0.05, which is about 0.3% of the cost of silver.

Even considering the amount of aluminum that will use twice as much silver as to achieve the same amount of conductivity between the battery and the battery, the raw material cost of aluminum is still only 0.6% of the direct material cost of using silver.

Natcore expects to submit a provisional patent application within the next two weeks

“In the past month, our scientists have brought about historic changes in the structure and cost-effectiveness of solar cells,” said Chappuwen, president and CEO of Natcore. “The solar cell manufacturers will no longer Influenced by the fluctuation of the silver market. Due to the technological advancement of our proprietary laser technology, which has saved a lot of costs for solar cell production now, we expect to submit a provisional patent application within the next two weeks.”

The current production of 1 GW of solar energy requires 1.5 million ounces of silver, and in 2014, it will consume 60 million ounces of silver, accounting for about 6% of the total metal demand. Until Natcore’s research results have yet to emerge, the use of silver is expected to increase to 15% of the entire market.