Silicon onto a glass substrate
December 15th, 2009
While mono and poly crystalline solar technologies typically produce power in the 12 to 15 percent efficiency range, thin film technology’s efficiency range from 6 to 9 percent. Although thin film is less costly to manufacture than mono or poly crystalline technology they do suffer from several drawbacks, among them are a much lower efficiency.
Amorphous solar panels are made by utilizing a vapor deposition process not unlike spraying the silicon which deposits a microscopic earth4energy thin layer of doped silicon onto a glass substrate. Although CdTe modules have been touted as being safe especially once encapsulated in a module, environmental concerns remain if these solar panels are not arranged in any specific pattern and in fact contain many structural and bonding defects.
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