Investigation and Improvement of the Electrical Performance of Silicon Solar Cells

Abstract

The present paper focuses on the investigation and improvement of the electrical performance of photovoltaic mono-crystalline silicon solar cells. Where, temperature effect was studied in details, where cells loss were observed, analyzed, and several trials to reduce its value were investigated applying passive and active aluminum heat sinks. Also, introduction of thermoelectric generators was proved to pronouncedly enhance the cells performances. The dependences of the opencircuit voltage, maximum output power, short-circuit current, and power conversion efficiency on temperature were observed. Where, their values were reported to be in the order of-2.3 mV/ o C,-0.59 mW/ o C, + 0.22 mA/ o C, and 0.065%/ o C, measured for free PV, and cell temperature of 39.0 o C. The maximum output power and conversion efficiency of the cell were shown to be reduced down to-0.53 mW/ o C and-0.058%/ o C, measured for the solar cell/thermoelectric hybrid system. Moreover, for solar cell/thermoelectric/passive heat sink hybrid system, their values were shown to be-0.52 mW/ o C and-0.057%/ o C. Finally, for the solar cell/thermoelectric/active heat sink hybrid system, the values reach-0.34 mW/ o C and 0.037 %/ o C, respectively.