Title :
A distributed emitter model for solar cells: Extracting a temperature dependent lumped series resistance
Author :
Wilcox, John R. ; Gray, Jeffery L.
Author_Institution :
Sch. of Electr. & Comput. Eng., Purdue Univ., West Lafayette, IN, USA
Abstract :
The solar cell operating temperature can significantly affect the intrinsic solar cell performance, as well as the resistivity of the emitter and grid electrodes. The grid electrode spacing is optimized to reduce the power loss caused by shadowing and lateral current flow. These optimizations are often based on measurements and calculations performed at the standard temperature 25°C. However, over a range of possible operating temperatures, 25°C to 100°C, the emitter resistivity can more than double and the metal resistivity can go up by 60%. If the temperature dependent sheet resistance is not included in the simulations, the conversion efficiency of the solar cell can be over estimated by 0.4 percentage points.
Keywords :
electric resistance; electrical resistivity; electrochemical electrodes; losses; optimisation; power grids; solar cells; distributed emitter model; emitter resistivity; grid electrode spacing; intrinsic solar cell performance; lateral current flow; metal resistivity; power loss reduction; shadowing; solar cell operating temperature; temperature 25 degC to 100 degC; temperature dependent lumped series resistance; temperature dependent sheet resistance; Educational institutions; Gallium arsenide; Indexes; Semiconductor diodes; Silicon; GaAs; grid electrodes; optimization; photovoltaic cells; series resistance; silicon; temperature dependence;
Conference_Titel :
Photovoltaic Specialists Conference (PVSC), 2012 38th IEEE
Conference_Location :
Austin, TX
Print_ISBN :
978-1-4673-0064-3
DOI :
10.1109/PVSC.2012.6318016