Potential of Photovoltaic Industry in Egypt

PV （photovoltaic） market is dominated by Europe, especially Germany and Spain. However, the PV industry leaders recently exist in Asia. The huge market growth require industry growth, but with competitive cost. The electricity shortage in Egypt makes transferring to photovoltaic technology necessary, especially with the high solar radiation. The only reason why grid parity is not yet reached in Egypt is the elevated subsidiary of conventional electricity. If this subsidy is transformed to incentives for using and manufacturing solar cells, the situation will vary. This article shows that transferring PV industry to Egypt has a potential of cost saving of 5.7%, which could be translated either into competitive price or higher return on investment. This work is not a feasibility study. However, based on the cost structure of each phase in the PV industry value chain, the benefit （5.7% cost reduction potential） of transferring the industry to Egypt is worthy to accomplish the needed feasibility study.

Possible top cells for next-generation Si-based tandem solar cells

Si-based solar cells,which have the advantages of high efficiency,low manufacturing costs,and outstanding stability,are dominant in the photovoltaic market.Currently,state-of-the-art Si-based solar cells are approaching the practical limit of efficiency.Constructing Si-based tandem solar cells is one available pathway to break the theoretical efficiency limit of single-junction silicon solar cells.Various top cells have been explored recently in the construction of Si-based tandem devices.Nevertheless,many challenges still stand in the way of extensive commercial application of Si-based tandem solar cells.Herein,we summarize the recent progress of representative Si-based tandem solar cells with different top cells,such as III-V solar cells,wide-bandgap perovskite solar cells,cadmium telluride(CdTe)-related solar cells,Cu(In,Ga)(Se,S)2(CIGS)-related solar cells,and amorphous silicon(a-Si)solar cells,and we analyze the main bottlenecks for their next steps of development.Subsequently,we suggest several potential candidate top cells for Si-based tandem devices,such as Sb2S3,Se,CdSe,and Cu2O.These materials have great potential for the development of high-performance and low-cost Si-based tandem solar cells in the future.