While the integration of photovoltaics (PV) into electrically driven vehicles has been demonstrated already in 1960, [1] vehicle-integrated PV (VIPV) is recently gaining increasing attention. This approach can contribute to the reduction of the emission of greenhouse and other harmful gases. [2][3][4] In addition, VIPV has the potential to reduce peak loads for the electric grid and to provide balance energy.For light commercial vehicles (LCVs), the rather high cuboid compartment provides a rather large area for PV while the energy consumption for driving is still comparable to that of passenger cars. Requirements on aesthetics such as curvature of the PV modules are relaxed. Furthermore, the drive pattern for LCVs probably include sufficiently long on-board PV-based recharging periods. We therefore
Herein, the various measures to improve the efficiency of large‐area screen‐printed double‐side contacted polycrystalline Si on oxide (POLO)‐cells are experimentally demonstrated. The short‐circuit current density Jsc increases by 0.6 mA cm−2 upon reducing the thickness of poly‐Si from 25 to 10 nm due to the reduction of the parasitic absorption in the poly‐Si layer at the textured front side of the cell. Additionally, it is shown for the first time that the minority carriers generated by light absorbed in the poly‐Si layer can at least partially be transferred into the crystalline Si base. Remarkably high implied open‐circuit voltage Voc,impl values are achieved with n‐type cell precursors by introducing an hydrogenation step by AlxOy after reducing the poly‐Si thickness, and by an additional annealing step after sputtering of transparent conductive oxides (TCOs). All cell precursors show Voc,impl values of up to 740 mV independent of the poly‐Si thickness. A reduction in the open‐circuit voltage Voc is observed during back‐end processing to 728 mV as measured on the final cells. A certified cell energy conversion efficiency of 22.3% is reported.
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