Evaluating Crystalline Silicon Solar Cells at Low Light Intensities Using Intensity-Dependent Analysis ofI–VParameters

Abstract

This paper discusses the influence of different solar cell loss mechanisms at low light intensities and presents a simple method for the analysis of solar cell performance under various illumination intensities below 1 sun. Suns-PL and Suns − V o c are used to measure the intensity-dependent pseudo I-V curves of symmetric test structures and of finished silicon solar cells in an intensity range between 1 sun and 10 −3 suns. The solar cell parameters from the pseudo I-V curves are compared with the parameters evaluated by intensity-dependent measurements of the whole I-V curve. The pseudo efficiency and pseudo fill factor are found to be in good agreement with the real values at low intensities as the influence of the series resistance vanishes. Based on this finding, we compare the passivation quality of silicon dioxide and silicon nitride in combination with emitter windows on test structures. Above 0.1 suns, both passivation layers show similar performance. Below 0.1 suns, the pseudo fill factors and pseudo efficiencies of the silicon nitride passivated sample are strongly reduced compared with the sample with silicon dioxide. The open-circuit voltage starts differing below 0.01 suns. Index Terms-Emitter windows, intensity dependence, low light intensities, pseudo I-V curve, suns-PL, suns-V o c .

Sequential Optimization for PV Panel Parameter Estimation

“…Temperature of the 300-W PV panel for dataset A was noted to be 41 • C, and for dataset B, it was 47 • C. The ratio of the dark saturation currents for the two cases is seen to be 2.1, which is in close agreement with 2.4 as evaluated from the method described in [11], for given temperatures. Due to the increase in the light intensity, R sh is seen to decrease, in agreement with the results predicted in [11], [39], and [40]. With the increase in temperature, R s is seen to increase from dataset A to dataset B, as expected from [23].…”

Testing dye‐sensitized solar cells in harsh northern outdoor conditions

“…The cell described in this section produced about 50% higher average ƞ compared to the indoors measurement at standard conditions. When comparing to C‐Si solar cells, an opposite behavior is seen: when the illumination decreases from 1 Sun to 0.001 Sun, the efficiency of c‐Si cells gets halved . The good performance of DSSCs under low light conditions compared to conventional solar cells is their known characteristic and recently DSSCs have reach as high as 28.9% efficiency under ambient indoor light conditions .…”

“…Because of the high efficiency at lower light intensities, the calculated overall light to electricity conversion efficiency of the cells reached as much as 50% higher values in comparison to the standard measurement conditions. It is noteworthy to mention that whilst the conventional silicon solar cell suffer significant losses when light intensity decreases , the efficiency of DSSCs increases in low light intensities.…”

“…Dye‐sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) have two performance related advantages compared to crystalline silicon (c‐Si) solar cells: (1) their electricity production decreases less than in c‐SI with low light intensity ; and (2) their electricity production may even increase when temperature rises from warm to hot (>60°C) whilst in silicon solar cells, the electricity production decreases . It has been shown that standard reporting conditions favor silicon solar cells, and in real use, the power output from DSSCs is much closer to that of silicon solar cells than what could be expected based on measurements in standard reporting conditions .…”

Single Atomically Sharp Lateral Monolayer p‐n Heterojunction Solar Cells with Extraordinarily High Power Conversion Efficiency

“…However, increasing the light intensity also comes along with more charge recombination events, resulting in reduced FF and thus PCE. It is noted that in Si and organic‐based solar cells that under high‐intensity light illumination, excessive charge carriers may accumulate at the electrode–semiconductor interface, inducing charge recombination, increasing series resistance, and lowering the fill factor of the solar cells . Therefore, back surface field and carrier selective layers have been applied to improve the carrier transport at the electrode–semiconductor interface .…”