The present disclosure provides a method of reducing the thermomechanical stress in the silicon solar cells induced in the interconnection process. The front and rear metal electrodes of the solar cell are provided in such a way that the outermost bonding point between the front metal electrodes and the front interconnects (ribbons or wires) is aligned to the outermost bonding point between the rear metal electrodes and the rear interconnects. The method is applicable to busbar-based interconnection using stringing/tabbing process and wire-based interconnection such as Multi-Busbar and smart wire connection technology. The method can be applied to both mono-facial and bifacial solar cells. The reduced-area busbar end in the busbar-based interconnection increases the tolerance of misalignment of the outermost bonding points introduced by the manufacturing processes.

Disclosed herein are approaches to fabricating solar cells, solar cell strings and solar modules using roll-to-roll foil-based metallization approaches. Methods disclosed herein can comprise the steps of providing at least one solar cell wafer on a first roll unit and conveying a metal foil to the first roll unit. The metal foil can be coupled to the solar cell wafer on the first roll unit to produce a unified pairing of the metal foil and the solar cell wafer. We disclose solar energy collection devices and manufacturing methods thereof enabling reduction of manufacturing costs due to simplification of the manufacturing process by a high throughput foil metallization process.

Disclosed is a photovoltaic module (1,2) comprising several serially connected IBC solar cells (100,200,300), wherein each IBC solar cell (100,200,300) has an electrode structure (110,210,310) comprising both a P-type contact electrode structure including at least one P-busbar (112,114,212, 214,312,314) and an N-type electrode structure including at least one N-busbar (116,118,216,218,316,318), wherein at least two of the IBC solar cells (100,200,300) are arranged relative to each other in a partly overlapping manner so that a first region of a back side of a first IBC solar cell (100) is arranged on top of a first region of a front side of a second IBC solar cell (200) and thus creates an overlap region (10,20), wherein at least sections of both the at least one P-busbar (112,114,212,214,312,314) and the at least one N-busbar (116,118,216,218,316,318) of the electrode structure of said first IBC solar cell (100) are located outside of the overlap region (10,30).

The invention relates to a method of producing a solar panel curved in two directions. A problem occurs when solar cells are laminated (attached) to a curved surface (such as thetransparentroof of a car) that is, at least locally, curved in two directions. Solar cells can bend in one direction (following a cylindrical surface), but to a much smaller degree in two directions. The invention solves this problem by subdividing the multitude of solar cells (100) in subgroups (302L, 302R, 304L, 304R, 306L, 306R, 308L, 308R), each subgroup associated with an area of the curved surface (202). By choosing these subgroups such, that almost no curvature occurs in one direction, the solar cells can be bend in the perpendicular direction. To optimize the efficiency further solar cells are used where anode and cathode are positioned at one side (the side opposite to the photosensitive side), enabling flexible foil to be used for the interconnection of the solar cells in a subgroup.

The present disclosure discloses a manufacturing method and a manufacturing device for an interconnection piece. The manufacturing method comprises providing a solder strip, and performing forming treatment on the solder strip to obtain a plurality of structural solder strips; and providing a flexible insulating substrate, and compounding the plurality of structural solder strips on the flexible insulating substrate at intervals to obtain the interconnection piece. Each structural solder strip is provided with two soldering portions and a connecting portion located between the two soldering portions, and the connecting portion is respectively connected to the two soldering portions; at least a part of the connecting portion is located on the flexible insulating substrate, and the two soldering portions extend out of the flexible insulating substrate.

Provided are: a conductive base for forming a wiring pattern of a collector sheet for solar cells, which has good rust inhibiting properties and solderability without using an organic rust inhibitor that may harm a solar cell element; and a method for producing a collector sheet for solar cells, said method using the conductive base. A conductive base for forming a wiring pattern of a collector sheet for solar cells, which is a conductive base (30) wherein a zinc layer (320) composed of zinc is formed on the surface of a copper foil (310), is used. The conductive base for forming a wiring pattern of a collector sheet for solar cells is characterized in that the zinc layer (320) does not contain chromium and the amount of zinc therein is more than 20 mg/m.sup.2 but 40 mg/m.sup.2 or less.

A solar cell using a printed circuit board (PCB) includes a substrate that is formed of an insulating material and in and through which a plurality of fixing holes and communication holes are alternately formed; a plurality of photoelectric effect generators that have ball or polyhedral shapes fixed to the substrate to be disposed over the plurality of fixing holes, and generate photoelectric effects by receiving light through light-receiving portions that are exposed to an upper portion of the substrate; a plurality of upper electrodes that are formed on a top surface of the substrate, and are connected to the respective light-receiving portions of the photoelectric effect generators; and a plurality of lower electrodes that are formed on a bottom surface of the substrate to be connected to respective non-light-receiving portions of the photoelectric effect generators, and communicate with the plurality of upper electrodes through the plurality of communication holes.

A photovoltaic laminate is disclosed. Embodiments include placing a first encapsulant on a substantially transparent layer that includes a front side of a photovoltaic laminate. Embodiments also include placing a first solar cell on the first encapsulant. Embodiments include placing a metal foil on the first solar cell, where the metal foil uniformly contacts a back side of the first solar cell. Embodiments include forming a metal bond that couples the metal foil to the first solar cell. In some embodiments, forming the metal bond includes forming a metal contact region using a laser source, wherein the formed metal contact region electrically couples the metal foil to the first solar cell. Embodiments can also include placing a backing material on the metal foil. Embodiments can further include forming a back layer on the backing material layer and curing the substantially transparent layer, first encapsulant, first solar cell, metal foil, backing material and back layer to form a photovoltaic laminate.

In the solar cell module including a plurality of solar cells interconnected with wiring members, each of the solar cells includes a plurality of front-side finger electrodes that are disposed on a light-receiving surface of the solar cell and connected with tabs and a plurality of rear-side finger electrodes that are disposed on a rear surface of the solar cell and connected with tabs. Rear-side auxiliary electrode sections are arranged in regions, which is wider than the front-side finger electrodes, on the rear surface opposite to regions where the front-side finger electrodes are present.

A solar module and a method for fabricating a solar module comprising a plurality of rear contact solar cells are described. Rear contact solar cells (1) are provided with a large size of e.g. 156156 mm.sup.2. Soldering pad arrangements (13, 15) applied on emitter contacts (5) and base contacts (7) are provided with one or more soldering pads (9, 11) arranged linearly. The soldering pad arrangements (13, 15) are arranged asymmetrically with respect to a longitudinal axis (17). Each solar cell (1) is then separated into first and second cell portions (19, 21) along a line (23) perpendicular to the longitudinal axis (17). Due to such cell separation and the asymmetrical design of the soldering pad arrangements (13, 15), the first and second cell portions (19, 21) may then be arranged alternately along a line with each second cell portion (21) arranged in a 180-orientation with respect to the first cell portions (19) and such that emitter soldering pad arrangements (13) of a first cell portion (19) are aligned with base soldering pad arrangements (15) of neighboring second cell portions (21), and vice versa. Simple linear ribbon-type connector strips (25) may be used for interconnecting the cell portions (19, 21) by soldering onto the underlying aligned emitter and base soldering pad arrangements (13, 15). The interconnection approach enables using standard ribbon-type connector strips (25) while reducing any bow as well as reducing series resistance losses.