![]() ![]() Main article: Cadmium telluride photovoltaicsĬadmium telluride (CdTe) is the predominant thin film technology. Other thin-film technologies that are still in an early stage of ongoing research or with limited commercial availability are often classified as emerging or third generation photovoltaic cells and include organic, dye-sensitized, as well as quantum dot, copper zinc tin sulfide, nanocrystal, micromorph, and perovskite solar cells. Despite these enhancements, the market-share of thin-film never reached more than 20 percent in the last two decades and has been declining in recent years to about 9 percent of worldwide photovoltaic installations in 2013. ![]() : 23, 24 Accelerated life testing of thin film modules under laboratory conditions measured a somewhat faster degradation compared to conventional PV, while a lifetime of 20 years or more is generally expected. ![]() The lab cell efficiency for CdTe and CIGS is now beyond 21 percent, outperforming multicrystalline silicon, the dominant material currently used in most solar PV systems. However, it has significantly improved over the years. Thin-film technology has always been cheaper but less efficient than conventional c-Si technology. Other commercial applications use rigid thin film solar panels (interleaved between two panes of glass) in some of the world's largest photovoltaic power stations. It is used in building-integrated photovoltaics and as semi- transparent, photovoltaic glazing material that can be laminated onto windows. This allows thin film cells to be flexible, and lower in weight. Thin-film solar cells are commercially used in several technologies, including cadmium telluride (CdTe), copper indium gallium diselenide (CIGS), and amorphous thin-film silicon (a-Si, TF-Si).įilm thickness varies from a few nanometers ( nm) to tens of micrometers ( µm), much thinner than thin-film's rival technology, the conventional, first-generation crystalline silicon solar cell (c-Si), that uses wafers of up to 200 µm thick.
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