Energy yield of bifacial textured perovskite/silicon tandem photovoltaic modules

Lehr, Jonathan; Langenhorst, Malte; Schmager, Raphael; Gota, Fabrizio; Kirner, Simon; Lemmer, Uli; Richards, Bryce S.; Case, Chris; Paetzold, Ulrich W.

doi:10.1016/j.solmat.2019.110367

Cited by 56 publications

(41 citation statements)

References 37 publications

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“…Moreover, TOPCon is easily adapted for IBC 1 and bifacial use 2 . Alternatively, tandem PV devices are receiving increased attention, where a crystalline silicon (c‐Si) bottom cell is to be combined with a perovskite, 3‐5 C(I)GS 6 or nano‐c‐Si top cell 7,8 . These approaches all have a major challenge in common.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Advanced textured monocrystalline silicon substrates with high optical scattering yields and low electrical recombination losses for supporting crack‐free nano‐ to poly‐crystalline film growth

Vrijer

Smets

2021

Energy Science & Engineering

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Crystalline silicon tandem devices with perovskites, CIGS, and nanocrystalline silicon, as well as the TOPCon design, are incompatible with the conventional pyramidal surface texture of silicon. This is a result of crack formation in nano to polycrystalline growth on large sharp surface features. In this work, three texturing approaches are investigated, using alkaline and/or acidic wet chemical etches, that can lead to the crack‐free growth of nano to polycrystalline materials on textured surfaces. In this work, we show that without acidic smoothening, the fraction of <111> pyramidal surface coverage has to remain relatively small to prevent crack formation during crystalline growth on these surfaces. Applying an acidic etch as a function of time continuously smoothens surface features. This shifts the reflection to wider scattering angles and results in higher total reflected intensity with respect to the conventional texture, making it an interesting option for a wide variety of tandem pv applications. Finally, we demonstrate crater‐like features on a <100> monocrystalline silicon surface using an etching process including a sacrificial layer. These craters increase light scattering into wider angles, but to a lesser extent than the former approach. In terms of passivation, we demonstrate the positive effect of a post deposition hydrogen treatment. Initial dilution of the silane plasma improves passivation on a <111> surface, but is detrimental to passivation on a <100> surface, likely because the hydrogen dilution results in epitaxial growth at the c‐Si/a‐Si:H hetero‐interface. A minority carrier lifetime of over 3 ms has been achieved for all texturing approaches, after deposition of a 15 nm a‐Si:H layer on both sides of the wafer, for different a‐Si:H deposition and annealing schemes.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Advanced textured monocrystalline silicon substrates with high optical scattering yields and low electrical recombination losses for supporting crack‐free nano‐ to poly‐crystalline film growth

Vrijer

Smets

2021

Energy Science & Engineering

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“…The effect of albedo on the optical performance of a bi-facial 2T tandem module with c-Si bottom cell passivated with poly-SiO x has been studied. Mean albedo values of 0.09, 0.44 and 0.85 have been taken into consideration for different ground surfaces such as sandstone, dry grass and snow, respectively [64,65]. Figure 8(a) below shows the yearly average photocurrent in the 2T bi-facial tandem for different albedo values as function of perovskite thickness.…”

Section: Effect Of Albedo and Perovskite Band Gap On Bi-facial Tandemmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Therefore, the spectral distribution of light incident on the rear side is always the same as on the front side. In reality, the albedo of a material like grass is wavelength dependent [64], which will result in differences between front and rear spectra. This may introduce a minor deviation in calculated J ph [67].…”

Section: Effect Of Albedo and Perovskite Band Gap On Bi-facial Tandemmentioning

confidence: 99%

Comparing optical performance of a wide range of perovskite/silicon tandem architectures under real-world conditions

et al. 2020

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Since single junction c-Si solar cells are reaching their practical efficiency limit. Perovskite/c-Si tandem solar cells hold the promise of achieving greater than 30% efficiencies. In this regard, optical simulations can deliver guidelines for reducing the parasitic absorption losses and increasing the photocurrent density of the tandem solar cells. In this work, an optical study of 2, 3 and 4 terminal perovskite/c-Si tandem solar cells with c-Si solar bottom cells passivated by high thermal-budget poly-Si, poly-SiOx and poly-SiCx is performed to evaluate their optical performance with respect to the conventional tandem solar cells employing silicon heterojunction bottom cells. The parasitic absorption in these carrier selective passivating contacts has been quantified. It is shown that they enable greater than 20 mA/cm2 matched implied photocurrent density in un-encapsulated 2T tandem architecture along with being compatible with high temperature production processes. For studying the performance of such tandem devices in real-world irradiance conditions and for different locations of the world, the effect of solar spectrum and angle of incidence on their optical performance is studied. Passing from mono-facial to bi-facial tandem solar cells, the photocurrent density in the bottom cell can be increased, requiring again optical optimization. Here, we analyse the effect of albedo, perovskite thickness and band gap as well as geographical location on the optical performance of these bi-facial perovskite/c-Si tandem solar cells. Our optical study shows that bi-facial 2T tandems, that also convert light incident from the rear, require radically thicker perovskite layers to match the additional current from the c-Si bottom cell. For typical perovskite bandgap and albedo values, even doubling the perovskite thickness is not sufficient. In this respect, lower bandgap perovskites are very interesting for application not only in bi-facial 2T tandems but also in related 3T and 4T tandems.

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“…Values of electrical parameters such as shunt and series resistances or ideality factors are taken from literature [21,22]. Such electrical model gives reasonably accurate results and can be rapidly used [14,15], simulations are run over the 8760 hours of a year.…”

Section: Spectral Modeling and Energy Yield Estimation Under Realistic Conditionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…So far, several works detailed optimizations of perovskite/silicon tandem devices for various configurations [3,[6][7][8][9][10][11]. Additional gains are possible by using perovskite/silicon tandem module in a bifacial configuration [12][13][14][15]. However, there have been few works on optical modeling of bifacial four-terminal configuration considering a full module stack, including spectral contributions.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Backside light management of 4-terminal bifacial perovskite/silicon tandem PV modules evaluated under realistic conditions

Julien¹,

Puel²,

López-Varo³

et al. 2020

Opt. Express

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Perovskite/silicon tandem modules have recently attracted growing interest as a potential candidate for new generations of solar modules. Combined with a bifacial configuration it can lead to considerable energy yield improvement in comparison to conventional monofacial tandem solar modules. Optical modeling is crucial to analyze the optical losses of perovskite/silicon solar modules and achieve efficient light management. In this article we study the optical properties of four-terminal bifacial tandem modules, using metal-halide perovskite top solar cell and a conventional industrial crystalline silicon PERC bottom solar cell. We propose a method to analyze bifacial gains, improve back side light management and challenge it under realistic spectral conditions at several locations with various albedos. We show that both optimized designs for the back side show comparable advantages at all locations. These results are a good sign for the standardization of bifacial four-terminal perovskite/silicon modules.

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Energy yield of bifacial textured perovskite/silicon tandem photovoltaic modules

Cited by 56 publications

References 37 publications

Advanced textured monocrystalline silicon substrates with high optical scattering yields and low electrical recombination losses for supporting crack‐free nano‐ to poly‐crystalline film growth

Advanced textured monocrystalline silicon substrates with high optical scattering yields and low electrical recombination losses for supporting crack‐free nano‐ to poly‐crystalline film growth

Comparing optical performance of a wide range of perovskite/silicon tandem architectures under real-world conditions

Backside light management of 4-terminal bifacial perovskite/silicon tandem PV modules evaluated under realistic conditions

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