The company announced today that the US Patent and Trademark Office has granted a patent for solar energy inventions to improve the structure of solar photovoltaic cells, opening the door to commercial acceptance and licensing by leading manufacturers.

Photo courtesy of Solar Invention

This invention, called the Configurable Current Battery, or C3, created silver savings of up to 12%-equivalent to saving more than $1 million per gigawatt at the current silver price. C3 has also improved battery, module and system performance. The improved cells and panels can be manufactured on the existing photovoltaic factory production line without any new equipment or materials.

With the US Patent No. 11,145,774 in place, Solar Inventures will complete pending C3 patents in China, Europe and more regions, which will account for 90% of the global solar market.

"Our global intellectual property portfolio is coming together," said Bill Nuzzi, CEO of Solar Inventions. "This patent opens the door for us to establish joint ventures with major partners in the areas of major battery and component manufacturers in India, China, Southeast Asia, the European Union, and the United States. We have begun discussions with potential customers about partners in all these regions. "

Dr. Ben Damiani, CTO of Solar Energy Inventions, recently presented two major papers on this technology at two international conferences (IEEE PVSC in the United States and EUPVSEC in Portugal). The first one focuses on improving the performance of solar modules by using C3 technology to increase the ratio of cell modules. The other explains the science behind silver savings.

“For example, a 9-bus PERC solar cell can save about US$1 million in silver for every 1 GW produced, and at the same time increase the performance of each panel by 2 to 3 watts, adding an additional US$1 to 2 million worth of power,” Damiani said . "As the industry ships nearly 200 GW of solar cells each year, C3 is likely to have an impact of 400 million to 600 million U.S. dollars across the industry each year."

The solar invention patent originated from Damiani's work. He is a senior inventor in the field of solar energy and semiconductors. He has worked at Suniva and Intel, and is now the company's chief technology officer. Damiani discovered that he could create multiple "channels" or sub-units on a single wafer by electrically dividing each unit during the metallization process. This technology effectively creates a new cellular architecture and opens the door to many innovations beyond C3.

In order to commercialize his discovery, Damiani co-founded the Solar Invention Company with Nussey and Gregg Freishtat in January 2018. By the beginning of 2019, the new battery architecture has made progress in the first American Manufacturing Solar Innovative Technology Award Competition by the U.S. Department of Energy. In September 2019, the solar energy invention won the first place, with a total bonus of 800,000 US dollars.

The company used the bonus to manufacture multiple iterations of pilot batteries and modules, and obtained independent third-party confirmation tests from CFV, NREL and Sandia National Laboratories. The C3 technology was tested, and silver savings were confirmed on single crystal PERC, HJT, n-type, half-cell and double-sided cells.

Cherry Street Energy, a solar installer in the southeastern United States, placed the first C3 battery order for installation on the roof of the Creature Comforts Brewery in Athens, Georgia. At the same time, in the first few months of the pandemic, silver soared above US$24 an ounce for the first time since 2013, and continued to trade within that range, making C3 technology more attractive.

"The benefits are similar to half-cells, which are also a major trend in the solar industry, but do not require physical damage and rewiring of the battery," Damiani said. "As the industry continues to trend toward larger wafers, our C3 technology actually has a greater impact. The increased flexibility of the sub-cell architecture allows new methods to limit the negative impact of power loss due to higher currents This is directly related to the size of the wafer in the solar module."

News items from the invention of solar energy

Kelly Pickerel has more than ten years of reporting experience in the US solar industry and is currently the editor-in-chief of Solar Power World.

"The company used the bonus to manufacture multiple iterations of pilot batteries and modules, and obtained independent third-party confirmation tests from CFV, NREL and Sandia National Laboratories. The C3 technology has been tested and has been tested in single crystal PERC, HJT, Silver savings are confirmed on n-type, half-cell and double-sided batteries."

Every engineering solution has "pros" and "disadvantages". Yes, it is a good thing to save $1 million in silver during the operation of the product from the solar photovoltaic cell to the panel manufacturing step. The downside is that there are fewer "valuable" elements and minerals that can be used to promote the recycling of these damaged, broken, and beyond the design life of the panels in the future.

Browse Solar Power World's current issues and archived issues in an easy-to-use, high-quality format. Bookmark, share and interact with leading solar construction magazines today.

Solar energy policies vary by state boundary and region. Click to view our monthly overview of the most recent legislation and research across the country.

Copyright © 2021 WTWH Media, LLC. all rights reserved. Site Map| Privacy Policy| RSS