Patent Analysis of High Efficiency Tunneling Oxide Passivated Contact Solar Cells

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This research article deals with TOPcon Si PV patent analysis, and the authors showed an impressive insight on current trend and impact on PV market. However, some information delivered in this manuscript is out-dated, and it seems that authors’ vision on the TOPcon architecture is limited only on PV field. This manuscript can be more impactful if some minor revision is provided. Specifically, the followings should be addressed or re-considered:     

1. Page 4, Table 1 – CuInSe2 is not a representative of the I-II-VI anymore. No major industry fabricate the CuInSe2 solar cells in commercial scale. Cu(In,Ga)Se2 or Cu(In,Ga)(SeS)2 families are more common in the field. Shortly CIGS is more appropriate. Also, already 60x120 cm2 or large than this is available in the market. Please correct the data.
2. Page 4, line 62 – Depending on the application field, sometimes the TOPcon is called as a “Carrier-selective contacts”. Non only in the PV field, but also PV-assisted H2 production or solar-fuel field (10.1016/j.cattod.2016.11.028) is an emerging field of the TOPcon device application. Authors can provide more detail about why this analysis is so important.
3. Page 5, line 95 – Typo: “were well studied in the next 10 to 20 years” – has been well studied for the last decades?
4. Page 6, line 124 – Depending on the substrate’s conductivity type, the hole migration can be instead of the electron migration.
5. Page 8, line 151 – The easiest way to form the thin oxide layer is wet chemical dipping (in the acidic solution at the temperature above 90C).
6. Page 17, Figure 8 – It would be better if the x-axis starts from the 2000 year. Not only this figure but also other figures’ visualization quality is a bit low.
7. Page 22, line 414 – As I understand, LG’s patent strategy is protecting their market with a series of defensive patents, which suppress other companies’ patent activities. Maybe this also can be an important note for the readers.

   

Author Response

Thank you for the suggestion. We would like to express our appreciation for the reviewer’s in-depth comments, suggestions, and corrections, which have greatly improved the manuscript. All of the changes and supplements are marked in yellow. We believe the revised paper to be significantly improved, and hope that the amendments to the manuscript address the reviewer's comments appropriately.

Attached please see the point-by-point response to the reviewer’s comments.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

In the current researches “Patent analysis of high efficiency tunneling oxide passivated contact solar cells” deals with the patent analysis of high efficiency TOPCon solar cell. Authors collected the patent portfolio of the main research countries and important manufacturers. They mainly focus on Patent technology-function matrix for the development device-related technologies via tunneling oxide and polycrystalline silicon. The above contribution is useful to scientific community for further researches in renewable energy technologies. This review article can be accept for the publication. 

Comments:

Page 5, line 86: repeating word “the research” should delete.

Check the Figure number 11, it should be Figure 10.

Author provided the country wise patent information of TOPCon solar cells. Also, I suggest to  provide the country/company wise production of TOPCon solar cells and its % contribution in energy market. They can also compare with some other famous Solar cells which is popular in the market now a days.

Author Response

Thank you for the suggestion. We would like to express our appreciation for the reviewer’s in-depth comments, suggestions, and corrections, which have greatly improved the manuscript. All of the changes and supplements are marked in yellow. We believe the revised paper to be significantly improved, and hope that the amendments to the manuscript address the reviewer's comments appropriately.

Attached please see the point-by-point response to the reviewer’s comments.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Review manuscript entitled: "Patent analysis of high efficiency tunneling oxide passivated contact solar cells"

The subject of the manuscript is the patent situation of the newest cell type emerging to market so called TOPCon solar cells.

The manuscript is a pure search manuscript and the aim is not clear to me. TOPcon is an upcoming technique for solar cells, however, it is not a surprise that numerous patents emerge during such a period, especially if the technology is promising going on the market. So is there any special aspect of TOPcon being researched in terms of patents? A comparison to other upcoming (HJT, PERC+, tandem perovskite, ...) or even established (Al-BSF/PERC/PERT/IBC) solar cell technologies would be much more interesting. By the way Al-BSF has still a large amount of market share. What is so special on TOPcon? Furthermore some aspects have to be discussed and to be improved before a possible publication:

Table 1: The caption of the table says: "Conversion efficiencies of various types of solar cells and the price per watt." however, no "prices per watt" are given. Please add them. Furthermore the data given there is outdated please see for instance "Solar cell efficiency tables (Version 55)" Green et al., Progress in Photovolt. 2020. The area data is wrong: most commercial Si wafer bases solar cells have area of at least 243 cm² (both single and multi/poly crystalline Si). The table has to distinguish between the different technologies used for Si wafer based solar cells: Al-BSF, PERC, HJT (Heterojunction), PERC+ (bifacial), n-type, p-type and so on. Please improve the table.

Line 440: please avoid to judge about the costs of large scale production, because this is only prospective, even if its right that TOPcon can be made on on modified PERC/PERT lines. However, HIT or HJT are on the market since some years hence they have done a learning curve regarding costs - which TOPcon doesn't. Real costs for TOPcon has to be proven in large scale production yet. The tunneling oxide is delicate and can be a show stopper in terms of stability and costs. For instance, HJT have less process steps compared to PERC. Please try to be objective.

Author Response

Thank you for the suggestion. We would like to express our appreciation for the reviewer’s in-depth comments, suggestions, and corrections, which have greatly improved the manuscript. All of the changes and supplements are marked in yellow. We believe the revised paper to be significantly improved, and hope that the amendments to the manuscript address the reviewer's comments appropriately.

Attached please see the point-by-point response to the reviewer’s comments.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx