Title :
Crystalline silicon short-circuit current degradation study: initial results
Author :
Osterwald, C.R. ; Pruett, J. ; Moriarty, T.
Author_Institution :
Nat. Renewable Energy Lab., Golden, CO, USA
Abstract :
Following our observation of slow degradation of short-circuit current (Isc) in crystalline silicon (x-Si) modules that was correlated with ultraviolet (UV) exposure dose, we initiated a new study of individual x-Si cells designed to determine the degradation cause. In this paper, we report the initial results of this study, which has accumulated 1056 MJ/m2 of UV dose from 1-sun metal-halide irradiance, equivalent to 3.8 years at our test site. At this time, the control samples are unchanged, the unencapsulated samples have lost about 2% of Isc, and the samples encapsulated in module-style packages have declined from 1% to 3%, depending on cell technology.
Keywords :
elemental semiconductors; encapsulation; short-circuit currents; silicon; solar cells; ultraviolet radiation effects; 1-sun metal-halide irradiance; 3.8 year; Si; cell technology; crystalline silicon short-circuit current degradation; encapsulation; module-style packages; ultraviolet exposure dose; Acceleration; Coatings; Crystallization; Electromagnetic wave absorption; Glass; Laboratories; Packaging; Silicon; Testing; Thermal degradation;
Conference_Titel :
Photovoltaic Specialists Conference, 2005. Conference Record of the Thirty-first IEEE
Print_ISBN :
0-7803-8707-4
DOI :
10.1109/PVSC.2005.1488388