It's named "ZEBRA". The new back-contact solar cell with an actual 19+% energy conversion efficiency and a potential exceeding 22%, that uses a low-cost industrial process. This new breakthrough was officially announced by Silfab SpA (Italy), a leading international vertically-integrated solar provider, and the International Solar Energy Research - ISC Konstanz (Germany), as a result of their joint R and D activities.

The ZEBRA cell concept is based on large area (156 mm x 156 mm) n-type monocrystalline (Cz) silicon wafers and is a back-contact, back-junction cell, without any metallization on the sunny side.

This means that, while the efficiency of today's industrial mainstream monocrystalline cell technology will soon saturate at around 19-20%, Silfab's innovative ZEBRA technology starts from 19% and will reach efficiencies of over 22% while significantly reducing the production costs per watt peak. ZEBRA solar cells performance starts out where traditional cells end up, opening a new frontier in the photovoltaic industry.

"The combination of high efficiency, large area n-type wafers, as well as a low cost process" - said Franco Traverso, Silfab SpA President and CEO - "leads to a significant reduction of cell and module production costs, and represents a very important step towards Grid-Parity. This is a technologic achievement that is made possible by the combination of the long-term industrial experience of our technical team with the excellence of ISC Konstanz in R andD on photovoltaics, especially n-type silicon solar cell. This is a very important and fruitful partnership, which is bound to last for very long time and give excellent results".

By the end of 2011, a cell manufacturing Pilot line will be implemented by Silfab SpA, which is also developing an advanced module assembly technology. In fact, the commercialization of new generation modules made by 60 ZEBRA cells and with peak power exceeding 290 W is planned for 2012 under Silfab's 40 years linear warranty terms.

The ZEBRA process sequence is a new and smarter combination of single process steps that are already implemented in mass production by the worldwide PV industry, thus avoiding the need of adopting specific equipments for producing interdigitated back-contact cells (IBC). Today's industry standard cells manufacturing lines can therefore be utilized to produce super high efficiency cells at a significantly reduced cost per watt.

As a consequence of this newly developed know-how, Silfab will also play the role of technology provider to other cells and modules manufacturing companies willing to convert their traditional lines, thus strongly contributing to their competitiveness and profitability.

"It is extremely rewarding for us to be able to work on important research projects and be financially and technically supported by a company with the outstanding expertise of Silfab" - said Dr. Radovan Kopecek, co-founder and director of ISC Konstanz.

"We are proud to be able to anticipate and illustrate such results as ours on low-cost IBC cells to the photovoltaic scientific and technical community like we recently did at the "nPV-workshop", a two-day workshop organized in Konstanz by ISC and other leading institutes in this field such as ECN, Fraunhofer ISE, ISFH".

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