Skip to main content
U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Towards 50 Year Lifetime PV Modules: Double Glass vs. Glass/Backsheet

Technical Report ·
DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/2333645· OSTI ID:2333645
 [1]
  1. Case Western Reserve Univ., Cleveland, OH (United States); Case Western Reserve University
This award aims to increase the lifetime of c-Si modules by lowering the power degradation rate to the goal of 0.2 %/year, while also increasing the harvested irradiance per module using bifacial cells to achieve the 2030 SunShot goal of $0.03/kWh. Increasing the durability and lifetime of modules requires improved module packaging material choices and module architectures to exploit new cell improvements. Bifacial PERC cells (with backside aluminum fingers) are becoming a primary PV technology due to their decreased rear surface recombination and increased light absorption compared to traditional monofacial Al-BSF cells. Bifacial modules with double glass architectures have been deployed to capture the rear-side irradiance thereby increasing the light captured. The choice of a double glass (DG) or glass/backsheet (GB) module leads to two very different chemical (e.g., O2, H2O) and mechanical environments (e.g., mechanical stress levels) inside the PV module that impact the cell’s operational conditions. The recipient will fabricate 4-cell DG and GB minimodules with various module architectures or constructions (mono- & bifacial cells, transparent & white encapsulants), and conduct stepwise accelerated exposures and characterization.
Research Organization:
Case Western Reserve Univ., Cleveland, OH (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE; USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Office of Technology Utilization
Contributing Organization:
Canadian Solar, Inc.; National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States); Cybrid; Dupont
DOE Contract Number:
EE0008550
OSTI ID:
2333645
Report Number(s):
DOE-CWRU--08550
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

Similar Records

Mechanistic Insights to Degradation of PERC Minimodules with Differentiated Packaging Materials & Module Architectures
Conference · Tue Jan 26 23:00:00 EST 2021 · Conference Record of the IEEE Photovoltaic Specialists Conference · OSTI ID:1763720

Evaluation of PV Module Packaging Strategies of Monofacial and Bifacial PERC Using Degradation Pathway Network Modeling
Journal Article · Sat Jun 04 20:00:00 EDT 2022 · Conference Record of the Photovoltaics Specialists Conference · OSTI ID:1922071

Overall Performance Losses and Activated Mechanisms in Double Glass and Glass-backsheet Photovoltaic Modules with Monofacial and Bifacial PERC Cells, under Accelerated Exposures
Conference · Sun Jun 05 00:00:00 EDT 2022 · 2022 IEEE 49th Photovoltaics Specialists Conference (PVSC) · OSTI ID:1900599