Investigation on the efficiency of back-contact monocrystalline silicon solar cells in low concentration and non-homogenous illumination

Abstract

Renewable energy and in particular solar cells are the subject of a continued interest. Consequently, studying the parameters that influence the efficiency of the solar cells as well as methods to improve their performance is of great interest. Among the possible parameters that impact the efficiency of the solar cell, non-homogenous illumination occurs more frequently in particular in concentrating solar cell systems; therefore studying the influence of non-homogeneous illumination on the performance of the solar cells are of a great value. In this thesis, a literature review on the subject of solar cells and in particular non-uniform illumination is given. The back-contact solar cell is modeled using COMSOL and the effects of doping on the parameters of the cell are being studied. The simulated model is verified by the theory in different light intensity. Afterwards this model is studied in non-homogenous illumination in different concentration ratios and the results of the simulations are compared with previous works. Conclusions are made based on the simulation about the impacts of nonuniform illumination on the efficiency of the solar cell in low and high concentration. A back-contact solar cell is characterized in the laboratory and the impacts of the illuminated area on the characteristics of the cell are studied. Moreover, the temperature effects on the parameters of the cell are measured and compared with the theory which shows a good agreement. A method to generate non-uniform illumination as well as the measurements of the resulted intensity map is presented. The solar cell is studied in different non uniform illumination, having different average illumination over the cell and the results are compared with the theory. Based on the results from simulation and experiments, it is concluded that the effects of nonuniform illumination on the efficiency of the cell is negligible for low concentration, before reaching saturation while the temperature stays constant, in control. Regarding the medium and high concentration, both temperature effect and saturation which occurs due to nonuniform illumination, leads to drop in the efficiency of the cell.

Date	30 Mar 2021
Original language	American English
Awarding Institution	École de technologie supérieure
Supervisor	Ricardo Izquierdo (Supervisor)