Colloquium

Title: From lab to line: how to bring innovations in PV industry?

Speaker: Radovan Kopecek, International Solar Energy Research Center (ISC), Konstanz, Germany

Location: Room 111, Physics Building

Time: 15:00-16:00, Wed, Nov 12, 2014

Abstract:

The PV industry is a very slow one in respect to adapting new processes. This has several reasons: the most important ones are that during the booming days nobody saw the necessity in adapting new processes and in addition adaptation of new processes is always risky, as not only high efficiency and low cost are important but also long term stability of the product. However, after the PV crisis, we believe that there is more room now for innovations, as many solar cell producers want to diversify from the standard product.
This talk will review what has happened in the past and what new developments have been picked up from the PV market. On an example of a bifacial n-type solar cell it will be shown in detail how long it takes for such a "revolutionary" development from lab to line. At the end an outlook will be given, how future solar cells could look like, if the Si cell in production reaches its theoretical limit.

Biography:

Dr. Radovan Kopecek - Deputy Chairman of the Executive Committee, Managing Director Advanced Cell Concepts
Dr. Radovan Kopecek, born in Brno (former Czechoslovakia), obtained his Diploma in Physics at the University of Stuttgart in 1998, researching superconductive fullerides. In addition, he studied at Portland State University (Oregon, USA) for one year, where he obtained a Master of Science in 1995. Towards the end of his studies in Stuttgart, he worked at the Max-Planck-Institut (MPI) and afterwards at the Institute of Physical Electronics (IPE) as a research assistant in the field of crystalline Si for PV applications. He joined Professor Ernst Bucher's Konstanz-based group in 1998 in order to write his PhD dissertation on the topic of thin film silicon solar cells, which he completed in November 2002.
Until the end of 2006, he headed several national and international projects at the University of Konstanz as a group leader. These projects focused on silicon feedstock and the development of crystalline Si thin film n-type solar cells.
One of the founders of ISC Konstanz, Dr. Kopecek has been working at the institute as a full time manager and researcher since January 2007, and is currently the head of the Advanced Solar Cells department. He is responsible for several European and national research projects that revolve around silicon feedstock and around the development of solar cells, with a focus on n-type devices. Further, Dr. Kopecek has been teaching the basics of PV at the DHBW in Friedrichshafen since 2012.