High Speed, Energy Efficient Manufacturing of Cadmium Telluride Solar Cells

光伏电池（太阳能电池板的主要组成部分）在国际努力中发挥着重要作用，以提高全球对未来化石燃料不可避免的能源供应短缺的适应能力。目前，大多数光伏（PV）都是由硅（第一代）制造的，但增长最快的市场份额属于碲化镉（CdTe）薄膜光伏（第二代技术）。由于CdTe提供了许多优于晶体硅的优势，如成本，可用性和重量，薄膜CdTe太阳能电池是一种新的光伏技术的基础，对太阳能生产具有重大的商业影响。不幸的是，像硅一样，CdTe在制造期间需要大量的能量输入，这意味着能量回收期通常超过2年。如果能够开发新的制造技术，大幅减少工艺能源，并允许替代材料用于其构造，这也支持减少能源足迹的目标，那么CdTe的这一矛盾问题可以部分克服。该项目中的技术进步将基于薄膜沉积技术（溅射）和这些薄膜CdTe层的新型热处理（激光退火）。这些过程将受到监控，以预测和检测故障，最大限度地减少能源需求并提高工艺速度。该项目的目标将通过汇集来自不同学科的一些研究小组来实现：可持续制造，光化学和激光加工。来自这些研究小组的研究人员在各自的领域拥有丰富的经验，可以在他们的小组中获得扩展的知识，以及世界一流的研究设施。这些特点加上精心规划的工作方案和风险管理战略，将大大有助于项目的成功，拟议项目在制造业的总体影响将包括：大大减少生产太阳能电池板系统的能源需求;有可能启动联合王国的碲化镉光电产品制造业;更便宜、更轻、用途更广的光电产品，可用于广泛的竞争性应用;以及在薄膜沉积和激光退火方面产生新的学术和工业知识。

Photovoltaic cells (the main component of solar panels) play a large part in an international effort to improve global resilience to inevitable future energy supplies shortages from fossil based fuels. The majority of photovoltaics (PV) are currently manufactured from silicon (1st generation), but the fastest growing market share belongs to Cadmium Telluride (CdTe) thin film PV (a 2nd generation technology). Because CdTe offers many advantages over crystalline silicon such as cost, availability and weight, thin-film CdTe solar cells are the basis of a new PV technology with a major commercial impact on solar energy production. Unfortunately, like silicon, CdTe suffers from the need for substantial energy input during manufacture which means that energy payback period is typically in excess of 2 years. This paradoxical problem with CdTe could be partly overcome if new manufacturing technologies could be developed to substantially reduce process energy and allow for the substitution of alternative materials for their construction, which also supports the objective of reducing their energy footprint. The technological advancements to be made within this project will be based around thin film deposition techniques (sputtering) and novel heat treatment (laser annealing) of these thin film CdTe layers. These processes will be monitored in order to predict and detect faults, minimise the energy requirement and improve process speeds. The project objectives will be reached by bringing together a number of research groups from different disciplines: sustainable manufacturing, photovoltaics and laser processing. The investigators involved from these research groups have extensive experience in their respective fields, access to extended knowledge within their groups, and world-class research facilities. These attributes alongside a carefully planned programme of work with risk management strategies will significantly contribute towards project success.The overall impact of the proposed project in manufacturing will include: substantially reduced energy demand to produce solar panel systems; the potential to initiate UK industry for the manufacture of CdTe PV; cheaper, lighter, more versatile PV for a wide range of competitive applications; and generation of new academic and industrial knowledge in thin film deposition and laser annealing.