Doug Rose joined SunPower in 2002 and currently is the company’s senior director of technology strategy. Previous roles at SunPower include product engineering manager of the company’s cell pilot line, which was located in Round Rock Texas, and director of module research and development. His career spans more than 20 years of manufacturing technology development, thin-film PV research, silicon cell and module development, and technology assessment at GTE, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, First Solar, and SunPower Corporation. Dr. Rose has degrees in mechanical engineering from Iowa State and Stanford University, and a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the University of Colorado. He has 58 publications and patents in the field of solar energy.

Abstract
SunPower designs, manufactures and delivers the world’s highest-efficiency non-concentrator solar power systems. With the largest installed base in North America, SunPower makes solar cells, modules, and systems for residential, commercial, and utility-scale power plant applications. Worldwide, SunPower has completed over 500 large solar power systems totaling more than 400 megawatts This talk will give an overview of the technology SunPower uses for these solar products.
SunPower is in high-volume production of cells greater than 22 percent efficiency, and has announced pilot production results of 23.4 percent. Some key technology drivers of these cells, including the all-back contact architecture, will be described. Some aspects of high-yield, high-volume manufacturing with silicon thickness of only 145 microns will also be covered. SunPower’s modules use a combination of packaging that is common in the industry along with some unique features, such as interconnects for back-contact cells that provide very high solder joint reliability. These elements, as well as SunPower’s approach to design and test for reliability, will be described. SunPower has system designs specific for end-markets, including quick-mount for residential, non-penetrating mount for commercial, and low-cost, single-axis-tracking for utility-scale. The basics of these systems, along with key-drivers of levelized cost of energy (LCOE), will be presented.