Advanced solar cell modelling

Abstract

Solar cells today enter a regime where they become cost-competitive with conventional methods of electricity generation. However, there is still a need to further reduce costs. An efficient way to do this is to increase the conversion efficiency of the solar cells. For crystalline silicon wafer solar cells this has been demonstrated for various concepts and the task here is to find low-cost processes, suitable for mass-production for these solar cells. Silicon wafer solar cells have the largest market share, but also thin-film technologies have developed rapidly and show excellent performance. However, while silicon wafer solar cells operate already close to their theoretical potential, this gap has yet to be filled for thin-film solar cells and more fundamental work is required here. Computer-based modelling can assist in many aspects to pave the way for an era that is relying more and more on renewable energies. The tasks addressed by modelling reach from fundamental research to production levels and it is important to keep these different levels in mind. A wide range of commercial and open-source software is available for these tasks. This paper presents two examples of current activities at the Solar Energy Research Institute of Singapore (SERIS). © 2013 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Selection.