PV America – Pt 3 – Silevo VP Chris Beitel

Our continuing coverage of the PV America show in San Jose CA this past week as we highlight our conversation with Silevo VP Chris Beitel who gives us a breakdown of the Triex solar cell technology that they are developing. This technology is showing some very strong efficiency rates for converting sunlight to energy. Watch the video below and then comment on what you think of this new solar energy technology.

Silevo Triex Technology:

Silevo is the first company to commercialize a ‘tunneling junction’ solar cell, a hybrid technology which couples the best attributes of 3 different materials (1) N-type crystalline substrate, 2) Thin Film Passivation, 3) Semiconductor oxide to optimize cell and module performance while limiting costs. Silevo’s breakthrough cell innovation coupled with traditional crystalline silicon (c-Si) package techniques enable Silevo’s Triex modules to optimize all three performance indicators in order to deliver the industry’s best value.

Silevo’s Triex cell is based on a breakthrough tunneling junction cell architecture to push the industry to grid parity. The hybrid technology incorporates N-type crystalline silicon substrates to enable good carrier lifetime and low light induced degradation, thin film passivation layers to produce high voltage, and a semiconductor tunneling oxide interface layer for excellent junction quality and temperature coefficient performance.
N-type crystalline substrate

Enables a good carrier lifetime and low light induced degradation.
Thin Film Passivation

Enables high voltage for improved efficiency.
Semiconductor Oxide

Enables excellent junction quality and temperature coefficient performance.
Triex Modules

Silevo packages tunneling junction type Triex cells with industry-standard module techniques, utilizing EVA, backsheet and glass lamination practices, which have been used by existing c-Si technology companies for more than 20 years.
The Triex Cell Difference

Silevo’s Triex solar cell is a unique and proprietary device based on tunneling junction architecture that couples tunneling oxide layers used in the semiconductor industry with more traditional doped thin film passivation layers, enabling a device with extremely low interface trap densities (Dit). This hybrid of N-type crystalline substrate, thin film passivation and semiconductor oxide in the tunneling junction architecture uniquely yields the benefits of all three materials.