Jerzy Pniewski and Leopold Infeld Colloquium
2025-04-17
The Jerzy Pniewski and Leopold Infeld Colloquium of the Faculty of Physics will be held in room 0.06 on Monday, April 28, at 11:00 AM.
The lecture entitled
"Photovoltaics – Current Status, Technologies, and Market Outlook"
will be delivered by
Eicke R. Weber, Prof. emerit., European Solar Manufacturing Council & UC Berkeley.
Energy production in the world increasingly relies on photovoltaics. At what stage of their development path are photovoltaic technologies now? What are their market perspectives? Among other things, we will learn the answers to these questions during a lecture by Prof. Weber, who has been involved in photovoltaics since the beginning of its rapid development in recent decades.
The lecture will be held in English.
Before the Colloquium, from 10.30 AM, please join us for informal discussions over coffee and cakes in the lobby outside room 0.06.
The dates of the Colloquium in the current semester are May 26, 2025 and June 9, 2025.
We invite you warmly to these events
Barbara Badełek
Jan Chwedeńczuk
Jan Kalinowski
Jan Suffczyński
Abstract:
Photovoltaics – Current Status, Technologies, and Market Outlook
Eicke R. Weber
Prof. emerit., MSME, UC Berkeley
Chair, EU PV Domestic Production Portfolio Initiative (DPP)Former Director, Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems, Freiburg
The global Photovoltaic (PV) market experienced consistent growth in the last decades, that can well be called unparalleled. Since 1992 it is achieving an average annual growth rate above 30%!
PV technology will continue to grow in energy conversion efficiency at ever falling cost. We started with the old industry standard PV technology, based on crystalline Si wafers, and characterized by an Al backsurface contact on a p-Si wafer. About 10 years ago this was replaced by Passivated Emitter and Rear Contact technology (PERC), where the wafer backside is covered by a well-passivating layer. Now we are at the brink of the third generation of c-Si PV technologies. There are fundamentally two third-generation technologies available, called TOPCON, because of the ultrathin tunneling oxide backside, and heterojunction, HjT, based on doped amorphous Si on both sides of the wafer. These technologies hold promise to increase solar energy conversion efficiencies towards 27%.
Beyond this, fourth-generation Si PV technologies will be needed, employing tandem structures with different band gaps, such Perovskite/Si or compound semiconductor/Si tandems. These structures are under development in many laboratories worldwide.
This decade will show who will be the winning technologies in the global multi-Terawatt market that we will witness at the end of this decade! We will discuss the current and emerging PV technology generations, and the growing markets for PV cells and modules.