Experimental Assessment of Temperature Coefficient Theories for Silicon Solar Cells

This article reports on experimental measurements aimed at assessing general theoretical expressions of temperature coefficients in the case of crystalline silicon solar cells. The relevance of a recently proposed relation between the temperature dependence of the open-circuit voltage and the external radiative efficiency of photovoltaic (PV) devices is demonstrated. It is also shown that the cells made of indirect bandgap semiconductors with insufficient light trapping have unusual temperature sensitivities of short-circuit current and open-circuit voltage. In addition, explanations for the observed discrepancies between the predicted and measured temperature coefficients of fill factors are suggested.