SiLEAN

The SiLEAN project, involving 2 research institutes, one University partner, 4 SMEs and 1 industry partner, deals with the development
of advanced innovations to tackle the major drawbacks of silicon heterojunction solar cell technology, namely the high energy and
material demand for Si wafer manufacturing, limited current generation, and the consumption of scarce materials like silver, bismuth
and indium. Within the scope of the project, we will directly grow the wafers from the gas phase with low temperature processes,
apply alternative passivation concepts that show higher optical transparency, develop indium-free contact layers and apply silver and
bismuth-free metallization with all-in-one cell interconnection and encapsulation. We aim to achieve >25.5% solar cell efficiency and
>23.5% module efficiency with 50% lower costs for Si wafers and contacting, as well as up to 75% lower carbon footprint. All
processes applied allow upscaling to larger sizes as well as high manufacturing throughput. Eventually, the developments of SiLEAN
will pave the way for a new, lean, generation of heterojunction solar cell technology that will both increment the energy conversion
efficiency and unlock production at terawatt-scale.