Reduce on the Cost of Photovoltaic Power Generation for Polycrystalline Silicon Solar Cells by Double Printing of Ag/Cu Front Contact Layer

With the development of photovoltaic industry, the cost of photovoltaic power generation has become the significant issue. And the metallization process has decided the cost of original materials and photovoltaic efficiency of the solar cells. Nowadays, double printing process has been introduced instead of one-step printing process for front contact of polycrystalline silicon solar cells, which can effectively improve the photovoltaic conversion efficiency of silicon solar cells. Here, the relative cheap Cu paste has replaced the expensive Ag paste to form Ag/Cu composite front contact of silicon solar cells. The photovoltaic performance and the cost of photovoltaic power generation have been investigated. With the optimization on structure and height of Cu finger layer for Ag/Cu composite double-printed front contact, the silicon solar cells have exhibited a photovoltaic conversion efficiency of 18.41%, which has reduced 3.42 cent per Watt for the cost of photovoltaic power generation. Graphical Abstract Partial Ag is replaced by Cu to reduce the manufacture cost of silicon solar cells. Cu-Ag double layer front contact has exhibited more excellent photovoltaic performance of silicon solar cells than that of Cu/Ag composite layer. Ag/Cu double-printed finger lines exhibits excellent photovoltaic performance, which can reduce 3.42 cent per watt for the cost of photovoltaic power generation.