IEEE Journal of Photovoltaics

Photovoltaic (PV) modules typically operate at approximately 30°C above ambient temperature on clear sunny days, irrespective of their location. Since the average annual daytime temperature is typically higher than 20°C in most locations, where PV modules are installed, operating temperatures can exceed 50°C on clear sunny days. This translates to a 12% reduction in nameplate power for crystalline... View full abstract»

Accelerated potential-induced degradation (PID) testing of photovoltaic modules is conventionally conducted in the dark and at high temperature and humidity levels without considering the influence of illumination. This study investigates the impact of illumination on the polarization-type PID (PID-p) on two different types of encapsulated (glass/backsheet) crystalline silicon solar cells: 1) n-ty... View full abstract»

Imaging techniques, like electroluminescence and dark lock-in thermography, are valuable quality control tools as they yield quantitative and spatially resolved information about the device. In this paper, we isolated some of the conductive foil-cell interconnections of back-contact solar cells to study the appearance of these intentional failures in electroluminescence, dark lock-in thermography,... View full abstract»

We have performed a computational study on the enhancement of the power output of bifacial solar modules with effectively transparent contacts (ETCs). ETCs are triangular cross-sectional silver grid fingers that redirect light to the active area of the solar cell, therefore mitigating grid finger shading losses. Furthermore, ETCs can be spaced densely leading to light trapping. We modeled bifacial... View full abstract»

A light-induced degradation phenomenon of unknown origin in p-type Cz-Si passivated emitter and rear cell (PERC)-type solar cells is thoroughly investigated by collating results from different measurement techniques and predictions from various simulations. The observed degradation manifests in slight losses in jsc, strong losses in Voc, and devastating losses in FF, and thus... View full abstract»

Broadband transparent and highly conducting electrodes are key to avoid parasitic absorption and electrical losses in solar cells. Here, we propose zirconium-doped indium oxide (IO:Zr) as a transparent electrode intrinsically meeting both requirements and demonstrate its application as the front electrode in silicon heterojunction (SHJ) solar cells. The exceptional properties of this material rely... View full abstract»

The capability for contact formation on indium tin oxide layers of different low-temperature screen printing silver pastes after thermal curing and photonic sintering is evaluated in detail. The 80-nm-thick indium tin oxide layers used in this study are sputtered at three different oxygen gas flows and, consequently, differ by their electrical and optical properties. All pastes are analyzed by mea... View full abstract»

The manufacturing process and the new structure of the potential-induced degradation (PID) resistive photovoltaic (PV) cells are described. PV cells are produced in the commonly used technological steps. The structure is modified by using the phosphorus silicate glass (PSG) layers after the diffusion process when the PV cell emitter is created. This modification is made directly at one of the prod... View full abstract»

Bifacial technology aims to boost power conversion efficiency of solar cells by effectively harvesting the albedo sunlight reflected from the earth, which is typically uncollected in conventional solar cells. We propose an innovative three-terminal (3-T), four-junction perovskite/silicon bifacial tandem solar cell that leverages albedo to surpass the theoretical limits of the traditional monofacia... View full abstract»

Light trapping inside the dye-sensitized solar cell (DSSC) is the most effective way to develop the traveling distance by restricting light propagation within the photoanode and promote interaction of incident photons with the sensitizer molecules. This paper covers the role of string shape of Ag(4,4'-dicyanamidobiphenyl) complex (Ag(DCBP)) as a modifier of TiO2 photoanode, to achieve s... View full abstract»

We obtain an improvement of the power conversion efficiency of organic solar cell (OSC) from 8.06% to 9.81% by blending indene-C60 bis-adduct (ICBA) in the poly[(5,6-difluoro-2,1,3-benzothiadiazol-4,7-diyl)-alt-(3,3'''-di(2-octyl-dodecyl) -2,2';5',2'';5'',2'''-quaterthiophen-5, 5'''-diyl)]: [6,6]-phe-nyl C71-butyric acid methyl ester (PffBT4T-2OD: PCBM) active layer. We find the incorporation of I... View full abstract»

Laser-based patterning for monolithic serial interconnection of metal halide perovskite (MHP) solar cells is a key process for industrial manufacturing of large-scale MHP solar panels. It requires reliable patterning process parameters to achieve low interconnection losses and, thus, high efficiencies. Here, P2 laser patterning of the perovskite layer was obtained by laser ablation using conventio... View full abstract»

Here, we present an environmentally friendly, cost-effective, large-scale production of water-based graphene suspensions by the liquid phase high shear exfoliation method of natural graphite. The produced water-based graphene suspensions are stable for a period exceeding a year. As-prepared graphene suspensions are used to fabricate transparent platinum-free counter electrodes, having transparency... View full abstract»

Leakage current is one of the determinants of potential-induced degradation (PID) of the photovoltaic (PV) module. Effects of different parameters such as module surface temperature, surface wetting, salt and dust accumulation, and aging condition on high-voltage-stress (HVS) leakage current of the crystalline PV module are investigated in the laboratory. In this research, a novel notion on HVS-le... View full abstract»

Modules with partial cells show better performance compared to full-cell modules due to lower electrical losses and increased optical gains. In this paper, we compare photovoltaic (PV) modules made of full, half, and third cells with tab widths of 0.8 and 1.5 mm under moderate and desert conditions, respectively. Initially, a statistical assessment of indoor characterization results of the modules... View full abstract»

Accumulation of environmental dust and consequent mud formation on optically active surfaces block the incident solar radiation, and thus reduce the efficiency of photovoltaic cells. Silicon is widely used in photovoltaic devices. The aim of this work is to examine the consequences of accumulation of dust and adhesion of mud on the textural, chemical, and optical properties of silicon wafers. Morp... View full abstract»

An empirical method for estimating relative power losses caused by potential-induced degradation (PID) for p-type solar cells and modules using quantitative electroluminescence (EL) analysis (QELA) is presented. First, EL images are corrected for camera- and perspective distortion. The relative power loss map is then calculated from the logarithmic ratio of two EL images, taken either before and a... View full abstract»

This paper explains the fusion of the physics-based material degradation mechanism with the statistics-based data modeling approach for predicting the degradation rate of photovoltaic (PV) modules. The degradation of PV module is mainly associated with the module construction type and climatic condition at its use location. The aim of this paper is to quantify the effect of dynamic environmental s... View full abstract»

Electroluminescence (EL) imaging is affected by off-axis illumination together with sensor and lens imperfections. The images' spatial intensity distribution is mainly determined by the vignetting effect. For quantitative EL imaging, its correction is essential. If neglected, intensities can vary significantly (>50%) across the image. This paper introduces and tests four vignetting measurement ... View full abstract»

In this paper, a modified buck-boost grid-connected three-phase photovoltaic inverter is presented. In the structure of inverter, an inductive dc link is used between the input and output. The merits of the employed inverter are soft switching and step-up/down conversion without any additional power converter stage. It is a transformerless inverter with no leakage current issue. Moreover, as a res... View full abstract»

In this work, metal–insulator–semiconductor structures were fabricated in order to study different types of insulators, namely, aluminum oxide (Al2O3), silicon nitride, and silicon oxide (SiO x) to be used as passivation layers in Cu(In,Ga)Se2 (CIGS) thin-film solar cells. The investigated stacks consisted of SLG/Mo/CIGS/insulator/Al. Ra... View full abstract»

The influence of sodium and rubidium postdeposition treatment on the quality of Cu(In,Ga)Se2 thin-film absorbers is investigated. The quasi-Fermi level splitting (QFLS), measured via photoluminescence (PL), is used as the metric of quality of the absorber. To evaluate the QFLS values in the graded absorber of state-of-the-art devices, it is necessary to know at which location the luminescence is g... View full abstract»

We developed a simple lift-off process for producing colorful, flexible, and lightweight Cu(In,Ga)Se2(CIGS) solar cells. The developed lift-off process consists of three steps: first, attaching a plastic film on a CIGS/glass solar cell at the temperature of around 100 °C; second, scribing the cell to the desired area/shape after cooling down; and finally, a back contact is deposited on ... View full abstract»