Effects of spectrum on the power rating of amorphous silicon photovoltaic devices

Abstract

The effects of different spectra on the laboratory based performance evaluation of amorphous silicon solar cells is investigated using an opto‐electrical model which was developed specifically for this purpose. The aim is to quantify uncertainties in the calibration process. Two main uncertainties arise from the differences in the test spectrum and the standard spectrum. First, the mismatch between reference cells and the measured device, which is shown to be voltage dependent in the case of amorphous silicon devices. Second, the fill factor of the device is affected by different spectra. Different cell structures and states (specifically different i‐layer thickness and levels of degradation) for the different light sources are investigated in this work. These sources are different solar simulators, LED sources, Tungsten as well as the standard terrestrial AM1.5G radiation. It is shown that the performance cannot be evaluated by short circuit current alone. The voltage dependent quantum efficiency of p‐i‐n devices can introduce a mismatch in the PMPP of 1% for 250 nm i‐layer devices in as prepared state, rising to up to 4% for the 600 nm i‐layer devices at degraded state. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

A simple approach to model the performance of photovoltaic solar modules in operation

“…It therefore significantly loses power when the light turns red-rich (a sp = À6.44%/AM, from a linear fit to the data of Fig. 2b) Gottschalg et al, 2004;Monokroussos et al, 2011). An opposite trend, though lower in magnitude, (a sp = +2.05%/AM) is observed for c-Si.…”

Effects of spectral coupling on perovskite solar cells under diverse climatic conditions

“…(1) into account, the spectral effects are finally computed as: where ΔSF is defined as the relative spectral factor and expresses the percentage of gains or losses of a PV device as a function of the short-current density at operating conditions relative to the value under reference conditions. This parameter has been proven as a reliable tool to evaluate the spectral impacts in the maximum power or energy output of a PV device [26,27].…”

A Proposal for Typical Artificial Light Sources for the Characterization of Indoor Photovoltaic Applications

“…The same results were qualitatively obtained: the cells perform better under incandescent/halogen illumination than AM 1.5, and worse under fluorescent illumination. Different authors discussed [6,43,44] and measured [45][46][47][48] the spectral mismatch between the absorption of solar cells and the spectrum of modern light sources.…”