• Current Photovoltaic Research
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.97-102
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• 2019

Bifacial and semitransparent hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) thin-film solar cells in p-i-n configuration were prepared with front and rear transparent conducting oxide (TCO) electrodes using plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition method. Fluorine-doped tin oxide and tin-doped indium oxide films were used as front and rear TCO contacts, respectively. Film thickness of intrinsic a-Si:H absorber layers were controlled from 150 nm to 450 nm by changing deposition time. The dependence of performance characteristics of solar cells on the front and rear illumination direction were investigated. For front illumination, gradual increase in the short-circuit current density (J_SC) from 10.59 mA/㎠ to 14.19 mA/㎠ was obtained, whereas slight decreases from 0.83 V to 0.81 V for the open-circuit voltage (V_OC) and from 68.43% to 65.75% for fill factor (FF) were observed. The average optical transmittance in the wavelength region of 380 ~ 780 nm of the solar cells decreased gradually from 22.76% to 15.67% as the absorber thickness was changed from 150 nm to 450 nm. In case of the solar cells under rear illumination condition, the J_SC increased from 10.81 to 12.64 mA/㎠ and the FF deceased from 66.63% to 61.85%, while the V_OC values were maintained at 0.80 V with increasing the absorber thickness from 150 nm to 450 nm. By optimizing the deposition parameters, a high-quality bifacial and semitransparent a-Si:H solar cell with 350 nm-thick i-a-Si:H absorber layer exhibited the conversion efficiencies of 7.69% for front illumination and 6.40% for rear illumination, and average visible optical transmittance of 17.20%.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.31 no.3
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• pp.182-187
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• 2018

In this study, 20.8% of a p-type Si bifacial solar cell was used to develop a photovoltaic (PV) module to obtain the maximum power under a limited installation area. The transparent back sheet material was replaced during fabrication with a white one, which is opaque in commercial products. This is very beneficial for the generation of more electricity, owing to the additional power generation via absorption of light from the rear side. A new model is suggested herein to predict the power of the bifacial PV module by considering the backside reflections from the roof and/or environment. This model considers not only the frontside reflection, but also the nonuniformity of the backside light sources. Theoretical predictions were compared to experimental data to prove the validity of this model, the error range for which ranged from 0.32% to 8.49%. Especially, under $700W/m^2$, the error rate was as low as 2.25%. This work could provide theoretical and experimental bases for application to a distributed and microgrid network.

• Current Photovoltaic Research
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• v.7 no.3
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• pp.65-70
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• 2019

As a demand of higher power photovoltaic modules, shingled, multi-busbar, half-cell, and bifacial techniques are developed. Multi-busbar module has advantage for large amount of light havesting. And, half-cell is high power module for reducing resistive losses and higher shade tolerance. Recently, researches on multi-busbar is focused on reliability according to adhesion and intermetallic compound between Sn-Pb solder and Ag electrode. And half-cell module is researched to comparing with full-sized cell module for structure difference. In this study, we investigated the factors affecting to efficiency and adhesion of multi-wires half-cell module according to wire thickness, solder thickness, and flux. The results of solar simulator and peel test was that peel strength and efficiency of soldered cell is not related. But samples with flux including high solid material showed high efficiency. The results of FE-SEM and EDX line scan on cross-section between wire and Ag electrode for different flux showed thickness of solder joint between wire and Ag electrode is increasing through solid material increasing. Flux including high solid material would affect to solder behavior on Ag electrode. Higher solid material occurred lower growth of IMC layer because solder permeate to sider of wire ribbon than Ag electrode. And it increased fill factor for high efficiency. In soldering process, amount of solid material in flux and solder thickness are the factor related with characteristic of soldered photovoltaic cell.