Results on performance and ageing of solar modules based on Elkem Solar Silicon (ESS™) from installations at various locations

Odden, Jan Ove; Lommasson, T.; Tayyib, Muhammad; Vedde, Jan; Buseth, T.; Friestad, Kenneth; Date, Hemant; Tronstad, Ragnar

doi:10.1016/j.solmat.2014.04.002

Cited by 11 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 4 publications

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“…To eliminate the variation of seasonality in a given month of different years, average the values of each respective month throughout the observation period under the assumption that the seasonality in each month does not vary from year to year. After the seasonality is known, and using the trend, the remaining irregular component is calculated with Equation (6). …”

Section: Estimation Of Degradation Ratementioning

confidence: 99%

“…One promising alternative is to use PV cells made from upgraded metallurgical grade silicon (UMG-Si) purified via the metallurgical process route [2][3][4]. The production of UMG-Si can be five times more energy efficiency than the conventional Siemens process to produce solar grade silicon; hence, the cost of UMG-Si is much lower [5,6]. However, UMG-Si contains more impurities, resulting in lower efficiency of crystalline silicon solar cells made from such materials than from the conventional Siemens process.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Performance Analysis of a Grid-Connected Upgraded Metallurgical Grade Silicon Photovoltaic System

et al. 2016

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Because of their low cost, photovoltaic (PV) cells made from upgraded metallurgical grade silicon (UMG-Si) are a promising alternative to conventional solar grade silicon-based PV cells. This study investigates the outdoor performance of a 1.26 kW grid-connected UMG-Si PV system over five years, reporting the energy yields and performance ratio and estimating the long-term performance degradation rate. To make this investigation more meaningful, the performance of a mono-Si PV system installed at the same place and studied during the same period of time is presented for reference. Furthermore, this study systematizes and rationalizes the necessity of a data selection and filtering process to improve the accuracy of degradation rate estimation. The impact of plane-of-array irradiation threshold for data filtering on performance ratio and degradation rate is also studied. The UMG-Si PV system's monthly performance ratio after data filtering ranged from 84% to 93% over the observation period. The annual degradation rate was 0.44% derived from time series of monthly performance ratio using the classical decomposition method. A comparison of performance ratio and degradation rate to conventional crystalline silicon-based PV systems suggests that performance of the UMG-Si PV system is comparable to that of conventional systems.

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Section: Estimation Of Degradation Ratementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Performance Analysis of a Grid-Connected Upgraded Metallurgical Grade Silicon Photovoltaic System

et al. 2016

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“…where and are the ionized acceptor and donor concentrations, respectively, and 0 is the net doping, equal to the hole concentration at equilibrium. The typical level of phosphorus in ESS ® is 0.60 ppmw [7]. Due to the different segregation coefficients of different dopant species, a more uniform resistivity profile throughout the height of the multicrystalline ingot can be obtained by adding Ga co-doping in addition to boron (also called tri-doping), enabling a larger degree of optimization of the resistivity towards the final solar cell performance [8]- [10].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Simulated and measured temperature coefficients in compensated silicon wafers and solar cells

Haug

Berthod

Skomedal

et al. 2019

Solar Energy Materials and Solar Cells

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In this paper we perform a thorough investigation of the temperature coefficients of c-Si solar cells and wafers, based on both experimental data and device simulations. Groups of neighboring wafers were selected from different heights of four high performance multicrystalline silicon ingots cast using different dopants concentrations and Si feedstocks; Three different target resistivities of compensated silicon ingots based on Elkem Solar Silicon (ESS ® ), which are purified through a metallurgical route, and one non-compensated reference ingot. The wafers were processed into Al-BSF and PERCT type solar cells, as well as into lifetime samples subjected to selected solar cell processing steps before being etched down and re-passivated to assess the bulk lifetime of the final cells. Temperature-dependent photoluminescence imaging was used to study the spatial distribution of the carrier lifetime and the temperature coefficient of the lifetime. We observe a beneficial effect of higher doping levels on the temperature coefficients of the short circuit current in PERCT type cells, with the most favorable temperature coefficients are found in the ingot doped to 0.5 Ω-cm. Increasingly beneficial temperature coefficients in is also observed with increasing height in each ingot, which might be attributed to a combination of small variations in the dopant concentrations and to a clear increase in the temperature coefficient of the carrier lifetime with increasing ingot height. The latter point is also in agreement with the changes in the so-called gamma parameter of the open circuit voltage throughout the ingot. To build a more fundamental understanding of the experimental results the temperature dependence of the solar cells was simulated using PC1Dmod6.2. We find that the experimental temperature coefficients of the final cells can be reproduced in device simulations within 8 % of and 14 % for the and , respectively. The compensation level itself is of minor importance for the cell performance. Instead, the simulations indicate that the observed behavior in the temperature coefficients of the solar cells is mostly explained by differences in the net doping and carrier lifetime of the wafers.

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“…100% ESS TM typically contains 0.6 ppmw phosphorus. 4 The addition of a third dopant in the melt, the acceptor gallium, results in less variation in the net doping after solidification and therefore also less variation in the resistivity over the ingot height. In addition the transition from p-type material to n-type material often observed towards the top of ingots containing boron and phosphorus can be avoided.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Resistivity profiles in multicrystalline silicon ingots featuring gallium co-doping

Søndenå

Haug

Song³

et al. 2018

AIP Conference Proceedings

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Results on performance and ageing of solar modules based on Elkem Solar Silicon (ESS™) from installations at various locations

Cited by 11 publications

References 4 publications

Performance Analysis of a Grid-Connected Upgraded Metallurgical Grade Silicon Photovoltaic System

Performance Analysis of a Grid-Connected Upgraded Metallurgical Grade Silicon Photovoltaic System

Simulated and measured temperature coefficients in compensated silicon wafers and solar cells

Resistivity profiles in multicrystalline silicon ingots featuring gallium co-doping

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