Reliability Improvement in III–V Concentrator Solar Cells by Means of Perimeter Protection

Concentrator photovoltaic is an emergent technology that may be a good economical and efficient alternative for the generation of electricity at a competitive cost. However, the reliability of these new solar cells and systems is still an open issue due to the high-irradiation level they are subjected to as well as the electrical and thermal stresses that they are expected to endure. To evaluate the reliability in a short period of time, accelerated aging tests are essential. Thermal aging tests for concentrator photovoltaic solar cells and systems under illumination are not available because no technical solution to the problem of reaching the working concentration inside a climatic chamber has been available. This work presents an automatic instrumentation system that overcomes the aforementioned limitation. Working conditions have been simulated by forward biasing the solar cells to the current they would handle at the working concentration (in this case, 700 and 1050 times the irradiance at one standard sun). The instrumentation system has been deployed for more than 10 000 h in a thermal aging test for III-V concentrator solar cells, in which the generated power evolution at different temperatures has been monitored. As a result of this test, the acceleration factor has been calculated, thus allowing for the degradation evolution at any temperature in addition to normal working conditions to be obtained.

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Instrumentation for accelerated life tests of concentrator solar cells

Núñez

Vázquez

González

et al. 2011

Review of Scientific Instruments

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A Reliability Model of Concentrator Solar Receivers

Hong¹,

Huang²,

Wei³

et al. 2013

Jpn. J. Appl. Phys.

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The degradation mechanism of GaInP/GaInAs/Ge triple-junction solar cells without coating with any protective film was analyzed. After the step stress accelerated degradation test (SSADT) was performed on the solar cells under the sequential conditions of 90 °C for 25 h, 110 °C for 30 h, 130 °C for 30 h, and 150 °C for 50 h, the degradation of dark and light current vs voltage (I–V) characteristics was observed. It is supposed that the recombination current in the depletion region at the chip perimeter of solar cells is the most important degradation mechanism for GaInP/GaInAs/Ge triple-junction solar cells as well as the decreases in open-circuit voltage (V OC), fill factor (FF), and energy efficiency (η).

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Reliability Improvement in III–V Concentrator Solar Cells by Means of Perimeter Protection

Cited by 2 publications

References 8 publications

Instrumentation for accelerated life tests of concentrator solar cells

Instrumentation for accelerated life tests of concentrator solar cells

A Reliability Model of Concentrator Solar Receivers

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