Patent ID: 8551803

Claim:
A process of producing a solar battery module comprising a solar battery cell sealed by a resin between a transparent panel of a light reception surface side and a back face panel, wherein the sealing resin comprises a crosslinkable thermoplastic resin, said process comprising: arranging a first sealing resin sheet substantially covering the entire surface of the transparent panel of the light reception surface side between the transparent panel of the light reception surface side and the solar battery cell, and arranging a second sealing resin sheet substantially covering the entire surface of the back face panel between the back face panel and the solar battery cell thereby forming an assembly which is then introduced into a sealing treatment vessel, and then performing a sealing operation comprising (i) reducing the pressure in the sealing treatment vessel to 0.01 MPa or lower at a temperature at which the thermoplastic resin is not melted; (ii) raising the temperature to the vicinity of or higher than the melting point of the thermoplastic resin in the reduced-pressure state; (iii) raising the pressure in the sealing treatment vessel to a pressure within a range of from 0.05 MPa to atmospheric pressure; (iv) raising the temperature to a temperature range where a crosslinking reaction proceeds, and proceeding with the crosslinking reaction while keeping the pressure in the sealing treatment vessel with the range of from 0.05MPa to atmospheric pressure; and (v) cooling, wherein the sealing treatment vessel comprises a bag and the entirety of the bag is made of a gas non-permeable soft film, a single vacuum system in which the outside of a sealing treatment vessel is kept at atmospheric pressure is employed, and the single vacuum system comprises plural bags arranged in a heating device.