All Copper NICE Modules

In this work the first All Copper NICE (New Industrial Solar Cell Encapsulation) modules with solder-freeribbon to finger interconnections are presented. Experiments were conducted to investigate if silver can be fully omitted from solar cells with copper plated fingers in combination with the NICE module technology. We could show that silver flash plating, front and rear silver busbars or pads can be omitted without compromising series resistance or module performance. All Copper NICE modules were manufactured with fillfactors up to 76.8 %.