Succeeding implementation at European and Chinese customers as well as further optimization
Following successful project progress at a first customer in China, we are now now also gaining market shares in other Asian countries with centaurus. In particular, technologically highly-developed <!–[if !vml]–><!–[endif]–> cell manufacturers are currently showing great interest, as centaurus technology facilitates rapid entry into the production of highly-efficient cells and modules. Successful customer projects have allowed centrotherm to prove the centaurus technology’s mass production maturity. Ramp-up was also successfully concluded at a European customer. Negotiations concerning further expansion are already underway.
Over recent months, the efficiency has been boosted significantly through improved laser optics. This step has allowed the laser diffusion to be better adapted to realizable metallization production tolerances. In addition, centaurus was equipped with fine line metallization, which has already proved successful in production. Average efficiencies above 19.5% are currently being achieved at customers, with 20% solar cells being attained in production in the best batches.
We are continuing to consistently pursue our upgrade strategy, offering to our customers the opportunity to considerably reduce production costs. Among other developments, the upgrade products’ flexibility has been further boosted to this end. Along with turnkey lines and upgrade packages, implementing centaurus technology under partial integration of existing systems is now possible with the “centaurus FLEX” upgrade concept. This significantly reduces not only investment costs, but also integration time and expense.
A further plus point relating to solar cells produced with centrotherm technology is that modules with centaurus solar cells have not only passed the potential-induced degradation (PID) tests performed by the Fraunhofer Centre for Silicon Photovoltaics (CSP), but have met the conditions for at least double the test duration. PID is a voltage-related performance degradation in crystalline solar modules, which is induced by so-called leakage currents. PID can generate significant performance losses in modules.