With the expected increase in annual photovoltaic production capacity beyond 1TWp/a (terrawatt-peak per year), the emphasis on novel, next-generation production technologies gains significance from the perspective of potentially lowering production costs as well as increasing sustainability by reducing the resources required in manufacturing. The focus of this work is to analyse the impact of high-throughput (HTP), next-generation silicon solar cell production technologies, as developed within the framework of the NextTec research and development project, on the required i) amount of equipment, ii) capital expenditure (CAPEX) and iii) labour, herein termed as key performance indicators (KPIs), for a solar cell production facility with an annual capacity of 10GWp.
