Photovoltaic systems are well known to be capable of providing electricity from solar energy to a wide variety of applications. However, there are still now lots of problems which have to be solved to be competitive with utilities. The most important among them is how to reduce their costs.
This paper gives information about the significant cost reduction methods for single crystal silicon solar cells. It describes the recent topics on the developments and fabrication techniques of low cost silicon sheets as well as of the developments of new processes for economical pn junction formations, electrical interconnections of solar cells and their encapsu-lations.