Brazil is a country that receives a large amount of solar radiation. Moreover, high quality quartz mines has been found in its territory and the country has well-established metallurgical grade silicon industries. However, PV technology is not used in large scale and there are no active solar cell fabs. In this context, a pilot plant to develop industrial PV technology was carried out in a Brazilian university combining education, research and industrial development. Silicon solar cell processes based on low cost chemicals and gases as well as gettering mechanisms were developed and more than 12,000 solar cells were fabricated, achieving efficiencies up to 16%, and two hundred photovoltaic modules were produced and characterized.
pilot plant; solar cells; photovoltaic modules
