Taiwan’s Industrial Technology Research Institute has developed a new type of solar cell with metal wrap-through technology that boosts its light to power conversion efficiency from 16 percent to 17.2 percent, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said May 31.
“As few developers in other countries are equipped with similar technology, cells made in Taiwan will be very competitive with those from Japan, the Netherlands and Germany,” said Huang Yu-chin, an official with the MOEA’s Bureau of Energy.
“It is expected the breakthrough will benefit Taiwan’s solar cell manufacturers by cutting their production costs and increasing global sales,” he added.
The metal wrap-through technology is a specialized structure for a multicrystalline solar cell that transfers the bus bars on the front side of the cell to the back, reducing shading on the front and thus raising its efficiency by 1 to 2 percent as compared to a regular cell.
According to MOEA statistics, solar cells made in Taiwan ranked second in global market share in 2010 with 14.1 percent, behind mainland China’s 46.4 percent.
The new technology has recently been transferred to Tainergy Tech Co. Ltd. and Kenmec Mechanical Engineering Co. Ltd., which will start using it to manufacture cells and photovoltaic modules in 2012, at the soonest, according to the MOEA.
