- Africa:
- South Africa
- Europe:
- Spain
- Germany
- France
- Italy
- United Kingdom
- Luxembourg
- Belgica
- Croatia
- Czec Republic
- Greece
- Hungary
- Netherlands
- Portugal
- Republic of Slovenia
- Romania
- Oceania:
- New Zealand
- Australia
R&D
One of our main values is the technological know-how generated by our teams of highly qualified scientists and engineers devoted to Research and Development (R&D). Our support for R&D projects enables improvements to our internal production processes and the integration of new renewable-energy technologies, which makes for a clear differentiation of our products in the market.
At present, the research undertaken focuses on polysilicon production processes, high-efficiency solar cells, inverters as well as energy storage and energy distribution systems. In the past, photovoltaic-related innovative products such as solar trackers and solar-farm monitors, and small scale wind energy systems have also been developed. Our spirit of innovation and commitment to provide better solutions for the renewable energy sector are reflected in our average annual investment in R&D materials which exceeds several million Euros. Siliken’s R&D department is comprised of a group of more than 40 researchers from all over the world, dedicated to improving existing products and researching new technologies in the field of renewable energy.
Siliken maintains agreements with research groups at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Energy Center Netherlands (ECN) and the Polytechnic University of Valencia (UPV) which are orientated towards producing prototype high-efficiency solar cells and power electronics for wind systems. Recently, Siliken began installing a high-efficiency solar cell pilot line at the Technical City of Innovation of the Polytechnic University of Valencia (UPV), aimed at establishing research synergies with the goal of increasing solar cell efficiencies.
The pilot line is based on high-throughput tools (>200wafer/hour) designed and built by Siliken as the Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) and its main goal is exploring novel processing approaches that can be scaled to high-volume manufacturing at a reduced cost.
For solar energy to be a competitive energy source, solar cell conversion efficiencies must increase all while keeping costs down, mainly via improving cell design and minimizing silicon content. This however requires new production strategies, processing steps and materials that should be introduced in solar cell manufacturing. In this way, Siliken has been working in collaboration with ECN to produce back-contact solar cells with efficiencies >19% [1] using an industrially feasible process that is currently being transferred to the pilot line.
[1] Castaño FJ, Morecroft D, Cascant M et al, “Industrially feasible >19% efficiency IBC cells for pilot line processing”, manuscript 770, 37th IEEE PVSEC, Seattle 2011.
