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Title: Development of coring procedures applied to Si, CdTe, and CIGS solar panels

Journal Article · · Solar Energy
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  1. National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)
  2. National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States); Colorado School of Mines, Golden, CO (United States)
  3. Florida Solar Energy Center, Cocoa, FL (United States)
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Most of the research on the performance and degradation of photovoltaic modules is based on macroscale measurements of device parameters such as efficiency, fill factor, open-circuit voltage, and short-circuit current. Our goal is to develop the capabilities to allow us to study the degradation of these parameters in the micro- and nanometer scale and to relate our results to performance parameters. To achieve this objective, the first step is to be able to access small samples from specific areas of the solar panels without changing the properties of the material. In this paper, we describe two coring procedures that we developed and applied to Si, CIGS, and CdTe solar panels. In the first procedure, we cored full samples, whereas in the second we performed a partial coring that keeps the tempered glass intact. The cored samples were analyzed by different analytical techniques before and after coring, at the same locations, and no damage during the coring procedure was observed.

Research Organization:
National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Renewable Power Office. Solar Energy Technologies Office
Grant/Contract Number:
AC36-08GO28308
OSTI ID:
1416901
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 1548887
Report Number(s):
NREL/JA-5K00-67850
Journal Information:
Solar Energy, Vol. 161, Issue C; ISSN 0038-092X
Publisher:
ElsevierCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 29 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Potential Induced Degradation of solar cells and panels conference June 2010
Investigation of delamination in an edge-defined film-fed growth photovoltaic module journal September 2005

Cited By (2)

A review on morphology engineering for highly efficient and stable hybrid perovskite solar cells journal January 2018
Investigating PID shunting in polycrystalline silicon modules via multiscale, multitechnique characterization journal February 2018

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Related Subjects

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