Challenges and prospects of cost-effective Si-based solar cells fabrication in Bangladesh

Solar cells are the basic building blocks of Solar Panels or Modules. There are presently nine companies manufacturing solar modules in the country. The total demand for solar cells in assembling solar modules of the nine companies are about 80-90MWp annually. In assembling solar modules, major raw materials include finished solar cells, bus bars, EVA, Al frame, tempered glass etc. All of them are import dependent for the case of Bangladesh. It is found that about 55-60% of total panel/module cost depends on solar cells. Cost-effective power generation using solar module solely depends on the quality of solar cells. Now-a-days, cost of solar cells has been decreasing rapidly over the last 3-4 years due to large scale production plants, technological improvement, declining cost of raw materials and competitiveness in the global markets. Solar cells which were used to sell for USD2.5 per Wp can be bought on a commercial scale for around USD1.2 per Wp. Mainly, cost of solar cell depends on the Brand, type of crystal structure (Mono or Multi) and the shape or size of wafer. For the first time in the country, `Bangladesh Atomic Energy Commission (BAEC)' has set up a laboratory to fabricate crystalline solar cells on a pilot basis. The method used to fabricate solar cells is the low-cost diffusion technique using POCl₃ gas source. Several solar cells of 150×150 mm² sizes and 200 micrometer thick are produced and characterized in the laboratory. The results have shown us some challenges and good potentialities in getting the high-efficient and cost effective solar cells. The paper addresses the challenges and potentialities in fabricating the quality based crystalline solar cells using slightly p-doped Si-wafers and chemicals in order to adopt technology so as to reduce the cost of solar modules. If the cost effective technology can be made familiar in Bangladesh then it will help in solving the power crisis in the country a great deal.