Vehicle Extension and Interior Module

In the 1950s, the United States Bell Laboratories invented monocrystal silicon solar cells, the use of monocrystal silicon wafers to achieve the breakthrough of solar light energy into electrical energy, and successfully used in satellites, but the photoelectric conversion efficiency at that time was only about 5%.

After decades of development, monocrystalline silicon solar cells have become the mainstream technology adopted by the photovoltaic industry. At present, the photoelectric conversion rate of monocrystalline silicon solar cells has increased to 26.8%, which is close to the theoretical limit of 29.4%, and the manufacturing cost and comprehensive power generation cost have been greatly reduced, and the Internet has reached parity in most parts of China.

According to the Shanghai Microsystem Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, in recent years, the share of monocrystalline silicon solar cells in the photovoltaic market has risen to more than 95%, in addition to the large-scale application of conventional solar cells in ground photovoltaic power stations and distributed photovoltaics. Flexible solar cells also have huge development space in wearable electronics, mobile communications, vehicle mobile energy, photovoltaic building integration, aerospace and other fields.

However, until now, China and foreign countries have not developed commercial high-efficiency, lightweight, large-area, low-cost flexible solar cells to meet the application needs of this field.

Now, this latest research by Chinese scientists has successfully cracked the “mechanical shortboard” of silicon wafers, significantly improved the “flexibility” of silicon wafers, and developed flexible monocrystalline silicon solar cell technology, on this basis to achieve flexible monocrystalline silicon solar cell manufacturing, and has verified the feasibility of mass production.

“No matter how it is bent, the whole large silicon wafer can be restored as before, it has no grain boundaries, no friction, even if it is folded 1,000 times, the power is not attenuated at all, and the service life is very long.” These are difficult to achieve with polycrystalline batteries.” Liu Wenzhu, the first author of the paper and an associate researcher at the Shanghai Institute of Microsystems, said.

Photovoltaic market has broad prospects

It is reported that the large-area flexible photovoltaic modules developed by the research team have been successfully applied to fields such as near space vehicles, building photovoltaic integration and vehicle photovoltaic.

The corresponding author of the paper, Liu Zhengxin, a researcher at the Shanghai Institute of Microsystems of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said that because the “smooth strategy” is only implemented at the edge of the silicon wafer, it basically does not affect the photoelectric conversion efficiency of the solar cell, and can significantly improve the flexibility of the solar cell, and has broad application prospects in space applications, green buildings, portable power supplies and so on.

With the continuous improvement of the efficiency of solar cells and the continuous advancement of research on new solar cell technologies, the future prospects of the solar photovoltaic industry are broad. In the near future, solar photovoltaic power generation will occupy an important seat in world energy consumption. It is expected that by 2030, renewable energy will account for more than 30% of the total energy mix, and solar photovoltaic power generation will account for more than 10% of the world’s total electricity supply. By 2040, renewable energy will account for more than 50% of total energy consumption, and solar photovoltaic power will account for more than 20% of total electricity. By the end of the 21st century, renewable energy will account for more than 80% of the energy mix, and solar power will account for more than 60%.