Development of Coring Procedures Applied to Si, CdTe, and CIGS Solar Panels

Helio Moutinho, Steven Johnston, Bobby To, Chun Sheng Jiang, Chuanxiao Xiao, Peter Hacke, John Moseley, Gerald Tynan, Mowafak Al-Jassim, N.G. Dhere

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

33 Scopus Citations

Abstract

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.

Original languageAmerican English
Pages (from-to)235-241
Number of pages7
JournalSolar Energy
Volume161
DOIs
StatePublished - 2018

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2017

NREL Publication Number

  • NREL/JA-5K00-67850

Keywords

  • CdTe
  • CIGS
  • Coring
  • PV Modules
  • Si

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