Characterization and Performance Analysis of Bifacial Solar Cells and Modules

Abstract

This thesis focuses on characterization and standardization of bifacial solar cells and modules and performance evaluation of these devices in indoor and outdoor environments. New methods to characterize bifacial solar cells and modules for simultaneous bifacial illumination are introduced. The proposed methods require only standard monofacial indoor measurement set-ups to measure the front and rear side of the device separately under standard test conditions (STC). Further, a method to quantify the losses in the cell-to-module process is developed for silicon wafer based bifacial PV modules. Also, this thesis investigates the performance of bifacial silicon solar cells encapsulated in two different module structures: glass/glass and glass/backsheet. The results show that, under STC, the maximum possible cost reduction benefits of glass/backsheet modules over glass/glass modules are limited to approximately 3.3%. Considering this result and the outdoor potential of bifacial PV modules, a methodology to measure and rate bifacial glass/glass modules under STC is presented.