White Paper Index White papers and research publications from Siemens Solar. Click on the document title to download the file in Adobe Acrobat PDF format . Status and Prospects for CIS-Based Photovoltaics Alloys of copper indium diselenide are among the most promising candidates for reducing the cost of photovoltaics below the cost of crystalline silicon. The availability of natural resources and the effect upon the environment both appear to be acceptable.
Challenges remain to scale the process to larger area and to pass accelerated environmental testing.
In order to compete with established crystalline silicon technologies, thin film photovoltaics must achieve comparable performance with the promise of substantially lower cost. Low costs will only be achieved with manufacturing volumes of at least several MW p per year. Due to the high investment required for such a factory, there are a number of prerequisites that must be demonstrated to reduce the risk of this investment. The product requirements must be clearly identified, and are likely to be dictated by the existing silicon technologies. Estimated manufacturing costs must be substantially lower than the costs projected for the crystalline silicon competition to justify the investment in an unproven technology.