Technical and economic opportunities for CdTe PV at the turn of the millennium

✍ Scribed by Peter V. Meyers; Scot P. Albright

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2000
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 298 KB
• Volume: 8
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1062-7995
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1099-159x(200001/02)8:1<161::aid-pip307>3.0.co;2-a

✦ Synopsis

A variety of issues face the photovoltaic (PV) industry in order to meet a market penetration goal of more than a gigawatt per year in worldwide sales before the year 2020. Although the PV market is dominated by silicon-based technology, it is not reasonable to project installed system prices of below $1 . 50/W in the next 5 or even 20 years without including the impact of polycrystalline thin ®lms. Polycrystalline thin-®lm technologies, including cadmium telluride (CdTe)-based technologies, are a viable option for enabling lower costs, more rapid market expansion, and gigawatt/yr annual sales. A number of issues must be resolved in order to demonstrate a competitive price of energy to the customer in the range of the $0 . 11±0 . 16/kWh.