South Korea bets on tandem solar cell technology to improve the efficiency of photovoltaic products

Introduction: The South Korean government announced a new roadmap to support Ru0026D activities in the solar field. The document pointed out that my country's solar manufacturing industry may be encouraged to choose high-efficiency and expensive panels based on tandem solar cells. South Korea's Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy (MOTIE) announced a new roadmap for the domestic solar module industry, which is expected to be heavily invested in high-efficiency and expensive products, such as panels based on tandem solar cells. According to the document, domestic solar manufacturers and research institutions predict that tandem solar cell technology based on silicon and perovskite will be the most promising candidate for the next generation of photovoltaic products. According to MOTIE, South Korea’s semiconductor and display industries may play a decisive role in this transition by supplying its expertise in silicon products and film development. According to MOTIE, public investment of about 190 billion won (159.7 million U.S. dollars) will be used for tandem photovoltaic technology research in the next five years. It is expected to reach an efficiency of 26% in 2023 and even 35% in 2030. In addition, it intends to allocate another 25 billion won to build a 100-megawatt research and development facility for testing TOPCon, heterojunction and tandem solar technologies. In addition, MOTIE will allocate 98 billion won for solar research activities. These include building integrated photovoltaics (BIPV) and floating photovoltaics. The decision to bet on high-quality and expensive technologies such as tandem photovoltaics is consistent with the logic of the South Korean government’s introduction of new regulations in May, which will consider the carbon footprint of solar power projects when prioritizing the installation of new equipment. The new regulations will echo the regulations implemented by France. In France, large-scale solar tenders will consider low-carbon manufacturing, as well as power generation prices negotiated by developers. Like France, South Korea has extensive nuclear power generation capacity, which will contribute to the low-carbon efforts of domestic solar panel manufacturers. According to a recent study in France, if manufacturers want to achieve commercial production, photovoltaic modules made with tandem solar cells will have to show 30% efficiency and provide the same life and degradation rate as standard crystal panels. According to this paper evaluating the potential competitiveness of series modules related to crystalline silicon products, the commercial version of the latter will reach an efficiency of 22-24% within ten years. If the reverse contact (IBC) heterojunction product is put into commercial use, It may reach 25%. In September 2019, researchers from the Ulsan Institute of Technology in South Korea demonstrated a new method of manufacturing perovskite-on-silicon tandem devices, using a transparent conductive adhesive to bond two batteries. Scientists have developed equipment with an efficiency of 19.4% and proposed strategies to increase the efficiency to more than 24% by using existing technology.