In the Netherlands, there is hardly any market for photovoltaic solar energy due to the lack of governmental financial incentives, yet in recent years various factories have established production lines for solar cells and modules. The presence of a well-organized PV research infrastructure in the Netherlands is essential to this. At the annual Solar Cell Workshop on 27 September 2006 in the Muziekcentrum Vredenburg in Utrecht, it became clear that this infrastructure is at a very high level. The entire spectrum of Dutch solar cell research was represented there. More than 140 specialists and researchers attended the Solar Cell Day.
At the symposium, organised by the Energy research Centre of the Netherlands (ECN), Shell and SenterNovem, projects and developments were presented in the form of lectures and posters, which together covered the entire field of solar cell research in the Netherlands. The Solar Cell Day was held under the auspices of the Joint Solar Programme. This programme was established in mid-2004 by the Shell Research foundation, the Foundation for Fundamental Research on Matter (FOM) and the Chemical Science branch of the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) and is intended to explore fundamentally new conversion principles, devices and materials and to widen the necessary fundamental knowledge base for solar cells. The practical objective is to increase the efficiency of solar energy. A second objective is to lower the cost of PV by such means as developing new manufacturing technologies.
Thinner and cheaper
The subject was elucidated by internationally known experts. One of these, Giso Hahn of the University of Konstanz, provided an overview of the state of affairs regarding cheap materials for crystalline silicon, which is the most widely used basic material for solar cells at the moment. This material was up to recently mainly supplied as scrap from the electronics industry. Unfortunately, this industry has limited production capacity, which is reflected in the price since demand now exceeds production due to the success of PV worldwide. Hahn outlined a number of development directions in R&D that could result in production processes for cheaper crystalline silicon wafers. It is expected that some of these processes will be applied on a large scale starting in 2008. The essence of all the new technologies is that they are simpler than the existing ones, that they lead to crystalline silicon of exactly the purity needed for solar cells and that wafers can be thinner. Paul de Jong of ECN showed that the Netherlands can play a significant role in these developments. He paid particular attention to the use of much thinner, very fragile silicon wafers to manufacture PV modules.
Thinner crystalline silicon wafers for solar cell
production means reducing costs.
Employees of more commercially orientated organisations presented their vision of the implementation of the results of the solar cell research. “A lot of what you see and hear here will come onto the market in the short to medium term. PV research, and its application, is doing well in the Netherlands.” For example one of the developments that NUON is hard at work on is Helianthos, a production process for thin-film silicon. This means that in time, meters of solar cell foil can be produced at low cost, making the purchase and processing of PV attractive and profitable for consumers.
Dutch firms have established factories for solar cells and modules,
namely Solland Solar at the German-Dutch border.
In recent years, Dutch firms have established factories for solar cells and modules, namely Solland Solar (Heerlen), Scheuten Solar Systems (Venlo and Gelsenkirchen) and Ubbink (Doesburg). There is also Dutch Space that makes solar cell systems specifically for satellites, and the material supplier Ferro. NUON has started the development of thin-film silicon modules. At the seminar, it appeared that the R&D capacity in the Netherlands is one of the most important reasons why the production of these companies is based here. After all, the domestic market is still small as compared with countries like Germany and Japan. It is opportune that Dutch research on PV, both quantitative and qualitative, is some of the best in the world.
Information:
You can find more information about the Solar Cell Day on www.jointsolarpanel.nl. You can also download the presentations here. You can find more information on the Joint Solar Panel and SenterNovem at the website www.senternovem.nl/energietranstie/Nieuws/Nieuwsbrief_oktober_2006.asp
Contact:
Ton Veltkamp
ECN Solar Energy
Tel. +31 (0)224 - 56 4251
veltkamp@ecn.nl
Rome, 7-8 October 2013
>>Renewable energy is facing a new era, both globally and in the European context. Whilst...
>>ECN presents its attractive, innovative technologies and services to the...
>>
