Artifact-Free Coring Procedures for Removing Samples from Photovoltaic Modules for Microscopic Analysis

Conference · Thu Nov 29 00:00:00 EST 2018

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1109/PVSC.2018.8547640· OSTI ID:1507978

Moutinho, Helio R ^[1]; To, Bobby ^[1]; Jiang, Chun Sheng ^[1]; Xiao, Chuanxiao ^[1]; Muzzillo, Christopher ^[1]; Hacke, Peter L ^[1]; Moseley, John ^[1]; Tynan, Gerald D ^[1]; Dhere, N. G. ^[2]; Mansfield, Lorelle M  ^[1]; Al-Jassim, Mowafak M ^[1]; Johnston, Steven ^[1]

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1. National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)
2. Florida Solar Energy Center

An important step in producing more reliable and efficient photovoltaic modules is to establish a relationship between the microscopic properties of modules deployed in the field for many years and efficiency-related parameters. The first step in accomplishing this task is to be able to identify and remove small areas from these modules without causing any damage to these samples. In this work, we will describe two different procedures to core small areas of deployed and stressed solar panels produced with different materials (Si, CIGS, and CdTe), and we will prove that these processes did not damage the cored material. We will also show that the coring procedure changes for different types of photovoltaic modules.

• Research Organization: National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Renewable Power Office. Solar Energy Technologies Office
• DOE Contract Number: AC36-08GO28308
• OSTI ID: 1507978
• Report Number(s): NREL/CP-5K00-71616
• Resource Relation: Conference: Presented at the 2018 IEEE 7th World Conference on Photovoltaic Energy Conversion (WCPEC), 10-15 June 2018, Waikoloa Village, Hawaii
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

14 SOLAR ENERGY
36 MATERIALS SCIENCE
coring
photovoltaic modules
Si
CIGS
CdTe