Correlation of PID with other Reliability Tests for CIGS Solar Cells

• Main Author: Muthalagappan, Narayanan
• Format: Others
• Language: English
• Published: Högskolan Dalarna, Energi och miljöteknik 2014
• Online Access: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:du-16469

With solar photovoltaic plants getting larger and larger, the balance in the system is getting important. Balance of the system is necessary to get the maximum power from the system by arranging its components in an optimal way. With PV systems having high DC voltages of up to 600V in USA and 1000V in Europe, the high voltage stress induced in the system is a lot. One of the effects created due to an imbalance in the system is the Potential Induced Degradation. Previous researchers have found out that the Potential Induced Degradation (PID) is due to the voltage imbalance in the string (a schematic arrangement of solar modules in a system) which is influenced by the environmental factors. The objective of the project is to characterize the electrical properties of different available CIGS solar cell types and to correlate other reliabilty tests with PID test to find out if PID has any correlation with the other degradation mechanisms. Thus 8 samples were requested from two different manufacturers of different CIGS solar cells which were tested and results were compared and analysed. Therefore it was found out some compostional structure prove stable against the PID. But changing the combinaton of the compounds have a difference. Some relational pattern of degradation with the Stability test was evident. Few of the previous finding were again confirmed with a new path of approach for the further researches.