Developing an Advanced Module for Back-Contact Solar Cells

Govaerts, Jonathan; Robbelein, Jo; González, Mario; Gordon, Ivan; Baert, Kris; Wolf, Ingrid De; Bossuyt, Frederick; Put, Steven Van; Vanfleteren, Jan

doi:10.1109/tcpmt.2011.2161082

Cited by 20 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…Although the encapsulation film shows some optical gain due to internal reflection of scattered light from the surface of the textured solar cells, it causes a large amount of optical loss by cutting off short wavelength light. Furthermore, by absorption of high energy short wavelength light, it suffers from a browning effect during long operation periods . In addition, the flat panel structures are only designed for standard characterization conditions, which do not fully reflect actual operation conditions, especially when they are used in urban applications.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Furthermore, by absorption of high energy short wavelength light, it suffers from a browning effect during long operation periods. 17,18,[25][26][27][28][29][30][31] In addition, the flat panel structures are only designed for standard characterization conditions, which do not fully reflect actual operation conditions, especially when they are used in urban applications. We suggest a new concept to overcome these limitations.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Finding 10% hidden electricity in crystalline Si solar cells using PDMS coating and three‐dimensional cell arrays

Yun

Sim

Seung

et al. 2020

Progress in Photovoltaics

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Over the decades, solar cells have been developed to achieve higher energy conversion efficiency. However, the fabrication of modules has resulted in electricity production loss, but this has not attracted as much attention as the solar cells. As a result, the improved performance of solar cells has not been fully revealed at the panel scale. Furthermore, the standard testing conditions, such as 1 sun, AM1.5, which is very strong incident light, does not fully reflect the electricity production capabilities of solar panels because of performance degradation under oblique and weak illumination. Simple modification of the module fabrication process, including poly‐dimethylsiloxane (PDMS) coatings and three‐dimensional (3‐D) structured modules by one‐directional angled arrays of each cell, has revealed 13.4% extra hidden electricity in solar panels with some types of crystalline silicon (Si)‐based solar cells through high transmission to short wavelength light, recapture of the light reflected from Si solar cell surface textures by the PDMS coating and enhanced power production under oblique incident light or scattered light through a 3‐D module. Further studies to find hidden electricity should be followed by the development of solar cell device structures to improve electricity production, rather than being restricted to optimizing energy conversion efficiency.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Finding 10% hidden electricity in crystalline Si solar cells using PDMS coating and three‐dimensional cell arrays

Yun

Sim

Seung

et al. 2020

Progress in Photovoltaics

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“…Modulesubstrate-induced thermal misfit stresses can also occur, but usually show a lower impact on the strain in the cells than in the encapsulating material. 41,42 The Al-Si mismatch stress however can cause interface debonding or crack propagation through the Si layer, especially when the surface is textured. An upper temperature limit can be derived following a procedure by Xu et al 43 Here, the bilayer is assumed to be flattened under pressure and bonded to a rigid substrate.…”

Section: B Mechanical Stability Of Memo Bilayersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Kerfless exfoliated thin crystalline Si wafers with Al metallization layers for solar cells

et al. 2015

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We report on a kerfless exfoliation approach to further reduce the costs of crystalline silicon photovoltaics making use of evaporated Al as a double functional layer. The Al serves as the stress inducing element to drive the exfoliation process and can be maintained as a rear contacting layer in the solar cell after exfoliation. The 50-70 lm thick exfoliated Si layers show effective minority carrier lifetimes around 180 ls with diffusion lengths of 10 times the layer thickness. We analyze the thermo-mechanical properties of the Al layer by x-ray diffraction analysis and investigate its influence on the exfoliation process. We evaluate the approach for the implementation into solar cell production by determining processing limits and estimating cost advantages of a possible solar cell design route. The Al-Si bilayers are mechanically stable under processing conditions and exhibit a moderate cost savings potential of 3-36% compared to other c-Si cell concepts.

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“…More fundamentally, however, warping considerations would severely restrict the process window of most of the process steps – in practice only virtually stress‐free processes would be viable which will be particularly challenging for metallization in particular. IMEC is therefore developing a new module technology, referred to as the U‐module technology, to integrate and interconnect 120‐µm thin back‐contact solar cells into modules 12. The concept, coined U120, originates as a novel method for fabricating solar panels starting from 120 µm thin back‐contact crystalline silicon solar cells.…”

Section: Cell and Module Technology: Toward The Development Of An Appmentioning

confidence: 99%

Linking nanotechnology to gigawatts: Creating building blocks for smart PV modules

Poortmans

Baert

Govaerts

et al. 2010

Progress in Photovoltaics

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Cost reduction, expressed commonly as a unit cost/Wp on the level of solar cells, PV modules and systems, is the overarching theme of the major part of worldwide activities in the field of photovoltaics. Obviously, this is the condition sine qua non to be met for reaching economical viability of solar photovoltaic energy. We already outlined 1 earlier that a number of nanotechnologies developed for advanced Si‐based nanoscale CMOS transistors might also be very useful for the race toward crystalline Si solar cells with higher efficiency and lower cost. The focus on this cost parameter might, however, obscure the growing need to add more functionality to the PV system if photovoltaic energy is to play an important role in the electricity generation scenarios of the future 2. In the view of the authors much of this added functionality could be integrated at the module or even within the module by using a number of microscale and nanoscale technologies. This added functionality on PV‐module level might in first instance aim at an increase of energy yield by adding electronic components allowing to minimize the effect of shadowing losses by allowing a certain degree of reconfigurability of the PV module. Eventually, this might also reach out further by integrating the DC–AC inverter with the module (allowing to reduce DC losses) and in the end even other components integrating control and interaction functions with the electricity grid. In this paper we describe the philosophy behind the concept of the “Smart PV module” as well as two crucial technologies to realize this concept: the embedding technology for cells and components in the so‐called U module and the development of a low‐cost technology for reliable high‐power components based on GaN‐on‐Si, enabling the high‐frequency switching transistors in the DC–DC or DC–AC converters or the low‐loss switches in a “reconfigurable” U module. Besides the well‐spread conviction that nanotechnological aspects will lead to advances in terms of solar cell performance and lower cell costs, the message which we would like to convey is the fact that the development of miniaturized components using advances in micro‐ and nanotechnology are also very likely to affect the development of the “smart PV module” concept, providing ground for the statement “linking nanoscale to gigawatts.” Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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Developing an Advanced Module for Back-Contact Solar Cells

Cited by 20 publications

References 13 publications

Finding 10% hidden electricity in crystalline Si solar cells using PDMS coating and three‐dimensional cell arrays

Finding 10% hidden electricity in crystalline Si solar cells using PDMS coating and three‐dimensional cell arrays

Kerfless exfoliated thin crystalline Si wafers with Al metallization layers for solar cells

Linking nanotechnology to gigawatts: Creating building blocks for smart PV modules

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