National program: thin film solar cells program in Japan - achievements and challenges

The results of the Japanese four-year thin film solar cell program, which was initiated in 1997, were reviewed and evaluated. The evaluation showed that substantial progress was made in thin film technology in the past four years and the almost all targets were met as of March 2001. As a result of the wide-ranging break-throughs achieved during the past four-year program, a new five-year program has been initiated from FY2001 aiming at more challenging targets. The major part of this program is the development of large area Si based thin film solar cells and CIGS thin film solar cells with efficiencies over 12% and 13%, respectively. Up to now, an initial efficiency of 12.3% and an efficiency of 13.6% have been achieved for a large area hybrid module and a CIGS module, respectively. In this paper, Japanese activities in the area of thin film solar cells will be discussed.