Status of PV Research, Solar Cell Production and Market Implementation

The search for a substitute for fossil energy sources, the world-wide improving environmental awareness and the needs of the growing population in developing countries have increased the interest in photovoltaics as a long-term, inexhaustible, environmentally friendly and reliable energy technology In the last five years, the production of photovoltaic cells has increased steadily by an average of 30% per year, driven not only by the progress in materials and processing technology, but by market introduction programmes in many countries of the world. This leads to the search for new developments with respect to material use and consumption, device design and production technologies as well as new concepts to increase the overall efficiency. This report is based on visits to Japan and the US in the spring of 2002, where government entities, research centers and the leading industry companies were visited.