After the detailed investigation of the solar cell production processes it was felt that the assumptions made by NASA for their studies were rather optimistic concerning the thickness and hence the weight of the solar cells. According to [7] c-Si solar cells are today serially produced with a thickness in the range of 400 mm with the perspective to reduce the minimum thickness in series production down to 200 mm within the next 5 years. For the evaluation of the accumulated consumed energy of a SPS the solar cell thickness is of great importance. It is directly related to the energy needed for the cell production (half thickness means almost half energy consumption for cell production related to square meter) and it also influences the energy needed for transportation according to its specific mass in kg/m2.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTU5NjU0Mg==