Solar modules active area

The deposition of CBD CdS as a junction layer for solar cell devices has proven to be a very successful industrially acceptable technique. Kessler et al.13 reported on copper indium gallium diselenide (CIGS) mini-modules (area = 16cm2) with a conversion efficiency of 16.6%, wherein CBD CdS was used as a junction layer. Basol et al.14 fabricated 9.3% active-area efficient thin-film flexible CuInSe2 (CIS) solar cells (specific power >1 kW/kg) on lightweight, flexible metallic, and polymeric (polymide-based) substrates using CBD CdS. 

Fig. 8.11. Monolithic series-connection of silicon thin film solar modules by a sequence of deposition and laser scribing steps. The current flow is indicated by the dotted arrow. For calculation of resistive and optical losses the active cell width ioa and dead area width Wd are needed...

The aperture area of a solar module is defined by the inner boundary of total laser scribed area. For every kind of series-connection, the active solar cell area is reduced by the area of the interconnection structure. Area losses increase if the cell width is reduced. On the other hand, electrical losses in contact layers become more severe with increasing cell width due to increasing cell current. Hence, optimization of the cell width must consider both area losses (dead area) due to patterning and series resistance losses due to TCO sheet resistance. These power losses can be described by the loss factors /, which is the sum of the loss factors /d (area losses) and /tco (resistive losses in front TCO) [69] ... 

Fig. 8.12. Calculated active area (gray) and aperture area efficiencies (black) of a-Si 11/jLif- Si 11 tandem solar modules as function of cell width for different TCO sheet resistance values Rtco 5 0 (dashed), 10O (solid), and 20 0 (dotted)...

The pattern designed was partieularly challenging for application in solar cells and reduced the active area to 190 cm (19% of the real area). The best module output power was found to be 0.27 mW with a Isc = 3 8 pA, Voc = 275 mV and a FF% of 25. 7%. The pattern designed allows connections in different site of the cloth cell with reproducible performances within 5-10%. 

Table 13.1 Optimized cost structure in terms of materials usage and processing time for the manufacturing of polymer solar cell modules. The calculation is the actual cost for the manufacture of one 16 x 13 mm module with an active area of 360 cm and includes associated materials losses. Power outputs for these modules are up to 660 mW (AM1.5G, 1000 W m" ). Reproduced from ref. 3 with the permission of RSC Publications, 2014.

Biancardo and co-workers assembled a semitransparent quasi-solid state dye-sensitized solar module connecting in series solar cells assembled with a gel electrolyte. Each individual cell presented an efficiency of 1% under 100 mW cm" . The efficiency of the whole module composed 23 cells (active area of 625 cm ) reached 0.3%. The authors claimed that, although the efficiency was higher for modules assembled with liquid electrolytes, the use of the gel electrolyte clearly improved the performance of the cells after 1 month, leading to devices with extended lifetime. ... 

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