Dark current-voltage measurements on photovoltaic modules as a diagnostic or manufacturing tool

Abstract

Dark current-voltage (dark I-V) measurements are commonly used to analyze the electrical characteristics of solar cells, providing an effective way to determine fundamental performance parameters without the need for a solar simulator. The dark I-V measurement procedure does not provide information regarding short-circuit current, but is more sensitive than light I-V measurements in determining the other parameters (series resistance, shunt resistance, diode factor, and diode saturation currents) that dictate the electrical performance of a photovoltaic device. The work documented here extends the use of dark I-V measurements to photovoltaic modules, illustrates their use in diagnosing module performance losses, and proposes their use for process monitoring during manufacturing.

Field failure mechanism study of solder interconnection for crystalline silicon photovoltaic module

“…The series resistance (Rs) was measured every 100 cycles using dark I-V [6]. In the case of module #2, result shows a dramatic decrease after 700 cycles as shown in Fig.…”

Extraction of Saturation Current and Ideality Factor from Measuring Voc and Isc of Photovoltaic Modules

“…Monocrystalline Si Cell. The diode ideality factor and saturation current can be accurately extracted by fitting (6) to a set of measured dark current-voltage (I-V) data using nonlinear parameter estimation software [11,12]. In this study, we have used FitAll [13] to obtain estimates of n and I 0 from dark I-V measurements.…”

Quantification of photovoltaic module degradation using model based indicators

“…The authors in [14] propose to estimate the parameters of the double diode model by using a non-linear regression procedure with the dark I-V curves of a PV module. In [14] this procedure is performed to predict the light I-V curves of the PV modules in a manufacturing process in order to estimate the performance of the modules without the outdoor operation.…”

“…In [14] this procedure is performed to predict the light I-V curves of the PV modules in a manufacturing process in order to estimate the performance of the modules without the outdoor operation. In this way the presence of a problem in a manufacturing batch can be detected.…”