Heraeus Photovoltaics, a leading technology solution provider for the renewable energy industry, and Cell Engineering, an engineering company based in Germany, today announced their joint development partnership on LECO technology. LECO (Laser Enhanced Contact Optimization) is a patented solution for solar cell manufacturers to significantly improve high-efficiency cell bin yields. Heraeus has invented, and is now refining, new LECO-specific metallization pastes which additionally improve overall cell efficiency by up to 0.15%. The technology is versatile and designed to be applicable for nearly all cell technologies which use co-firing.
The breakthrough LECO tool and metallization package is a simple add-in technology that leverages the industry expertise of Heraeus and Cell Engineering. This technology solution significantly reduces metal-induced recombination while maintaining low contact resistance, thereby increasing cell efficiency with minimal impact to the production line and no process change required. As part of the joint development partnership, Heraeus acquired a LECO tool and invented the new metallization paste to take advantage of the new technology.
Martin Ackermann, President of Heraeus Photovoltaics, said, “Our collaboration and partnership with Cell Engineering has produced what we believe is a potential game-changer for solar cell metallization. It will enable ‘perfect’ metallization contacts and help customers get even greater performance from their solar cells.”
Hans Jochen von Bomhard, Managing Director Cell Engineering, said, “Cell Engineering offers the customer the optimal equipment for the use of LECO pastes. The production spectrum includes a laboratory machine as well as equipment for integration into cell lines”.
Heraeus will present its work on LECO-specific paste development this week at the EU PVSEC 2019 conference, taking place in Marseille, France. The presentation, scheduled for Thursday, September 12, will feature results of LECO-specific metallization pastes on several different cell types, including P-type ultra-low doped homogeneous PERC, selective emitter (SE) PERC, N-type PERT and TOPCon.
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About the Heraeus Photovoltaics Global Business Unit
The Heraeus Photovoltaics Global Business Unit is an industry leading developer and manufacturer of silver metallization pastes for the photovoltaic industry. For over 40 years, Heraeus has built a reputation of innovation, extensive research and new product development in thick film technologies for some of the most prominent companies within a variety of industries. In the field of photovoltaics, the Heraeus Photovoltaics Business Unit applies this history and its innovative technology to offer metallization pastes for solar cell applications. The Heraeus SOL Series of silver pastes is specially formulated to provide higher efficiencies and wider processing windows, resulting in better yields and higher output for cell manufacturers.
About Cell Engineering
The German CE Cell Engineering GmbH is an attractive engineering partner specialized in research on crystalline solar cells, in particular the development and optimization of manufacturing technologies for the manufacture and repair of such cells. The company is a member of the international Hörmann group of companies. With 3600 employees, the family-run medium-sized group of companies achieves an annual turnover of 640 million euros. It has grown successfully for over 60 years in the areas of public warning systems, communication systems for railways all over the world, as a supplier to the automotive industry with a focus on commercial vehicles and as a provider of engineering services and special mechanical engineering. Most recently, it has been involved in an additional division in the field of renewable energies. Its activities include a number of geothermal projects, the construction of solar thermal power plants and the repair and reproduction of PV modules of all kinds.