Light Enhancement of Solar Module

Hsin-Hsin Hsieh¹, Jen-Loong Hwang¹, Chia-Yu Lin², Jang-Hsing Hsieh¹

¹Green Energy & Environment Research Lab, Industrial Technology Research Institute, Hsinchu City, Chinese Taipei.
²Department of Materials Engineering, Ming-Chi University of Technology, New Taipei, Chinese Taipei.

DOI: 10.4236/epe.2014.614044                

Abstract

This paper presents sputtered-deposited Ag nanoparticles (NPs) on the encapsulant material (ethylene vinyl acetate, EVA) with the variation of annealing condition on crystalline silicon solar cell to enhance the light intensity, and a conventional solar cell is also performed for comparison. It was found that an increase in the transmittance at the wavelength of 500 - 800 nm was detected in the Ag nanoparticle solar cells. And red-light enhancement of around 2% was measured in the Ag-sputtered solar module under annealing condition of 700℃ for 3 min from incident photon to converted electron (IPCE) profile. The photovoltaic performance of solar modules was characterized by a flasher system in AAA class (temporal instability, spectral match, and irradiance non-uniformity). The IV curve showed a current enhancement with Ag-EVA sample, and thus a high power output around 0.250 W was observed. A high fill factor of 73.63% also implied a high performance in series and shunt resistance. Surface plasmonic resonance effects of Ag nanoparticles deposited on the surface of solar cell were examined and discussed. This paper not only illustrated the performance of the surface plasmonic resonance of a solar device but also verified the application in the industrial production.

Keywords

Light Enhancement, Solar Module, Ag Nanoparticles

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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