Abstract
Parasitic shunt formation is an important cause of variability and module efficiency loss in all photovoltaic technologies. In this letter, we quantify the nature of this shunt variability in four major thin film photovoltaic (TFPV) technologies, namely, amorphous silicon (a-Si:H), organic (OPV), Cu(In,Ga)SSe (CIGS), and CdTe. We analyze a wide variety of datasets to show that the shunt current exhibits a robust universal log-normal behavior for all these technologies. We affirm this conclusion by rigorous statistical analysis of the available data. We use equivalent circuit simulations to quantitatively illustrate the importance of this heavy-tailed distribution towards determining the universal gap between cell and module efficiency.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 782-787 |
| Number of pages | 6 |
| Journal | Energy and Environmental Science |
| Volume | 6 |
| Issue number | 3 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Mar 2013 |
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ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment
- Environmental Chemistry
- Pollution
- Nuclear Energy and Engineering
Cite this
Universal statistics of parasitic shunt formation in solar cells, and its implications for cell to module efficiency gap. / Dongaonkar, Sourabh; Loser, Stephen; Sheets, Erik J.; Zaunbrecher, Katherine; Agrawal, Rakesh; Marks, Tobin J; Alam, Muhammad A.
In: Energy and Environmental Science, Vol. 6, No. 3, 03.2013, p. 782-787.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article
}
TY - JOUR
T1 - Universal statistics of parasitic shunt formation in solar cells, and its implications for cell to module efficiency gap
AU - Dongaonkar, Sourabh
AU - Loser, Stephen
AU - Sheets, Erik J.
AU - Zaunbrecher, Katherine
AU - Agrawal, Rakesh
AU - Marks, Tobin J
AU - Alam, Muhammad A.
PY - 2013/3
Y1 - 2013/3
N2 - Parasitic shunt formation is an important cause of variability and module efficiency loss in all photovoltaic technologies. In this letter, we quantify the nature of this shunt variability in four major thin film photovoltaic (TFPV) technologies, namely, amorphous silicon (a-Si:H), organic (OPV), Cu(In,Ga)SSe (CIGS), and CdTe. We analyze a wide variety of datasets to show that the shunt current exhibits a robust universal log-normal behavior for all these technologies. We affirm this conclusion by rigorous statistical analysis of the available data. We use equivalent circuit simulations to quantitatively illustrate the importance of this heavy-tailed distribution towards determining the universal gap between cell and module efficiency.
AB - Parasitic shunt formation is an important cause of variability and module efficiency loss in all photovoltaic technologies. In this letter, we quantify the nature of this shunt variability in four major thin film photovoltaic (TFPV) technologies, namely, amorphous silicon (a-Si:H), organic (OPV), Cu(In,Ga)SSe (CIGS), and CdTe. We analyze a wide variety of datasets to show that the shunt current exhibits a robust universal log-normal behavior for all these technologies. We affirm this conclusion by rigorous statistical analysis of the available data. We use equivalent circuit simulations to quantitatively illustrate the importance of this heavy-tailed distribution towards determining the universal gap between cell and module efficiency.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84875837625&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=84875837625&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1039/c3ee24167j
DO - 10.1039/c3ee24167j
M3 - Article
VL - 6
SP - 782
EP - 787
JO - Energy and Environmental Science
JF - Energy and Environmental Science
SN - 1754-5692
IS - 3
ER -