Impact of Illumination and Encapsulant Resistivity on Polarization-Type Potential-Induced Degradation on n-PERT Cells

Brian Habersberger, Peter Hacke

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

10 Scopus Citations

Abstract

Power loss caused by polarization-type potential-induced degradation (PID-p) in a variety of high-performance photovoltaic cell types has been observed to be recoverable via subsequent illumination and in some cases preventable via simultaneous illumination. In this report, we describe the results of a study in which the front faces of n-PERT cells encapsulated in polymers with a broad range of electrical resistivity were exposed to varying and controlled irradiance during PID testing. For a low resistivity ethylene-vinyl acetate copolymer encapsulant, no reduction in the rate or extent of power loss was observed for irradiance as high as 1,000 W/m2, whereas for high and intermediate resistivity polyolefin encapsulants, 100 and 300 W/m2, respectively, prevented power loss. We introduce a simple model based on charge accumulation that facilitates interpretation of these results whereby degradation via charge accumulation under voltage stress and recovery due to light exposure are opposing and interdependent phenomena that describe the susceptibility of a module to power loss.

Original languageAmerican English
Pages (from-to)455-463
Number of pages9
JournalProgress in Photovoltaics: Research and Applications
Volume30
Issue number5
DOIs
StatePublished - 2022

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

NREL Publication Number

  • NREL/JA-5K00-80058

Keywords

  • modules
  • PERT
  • PID
  • potential-induced degradation
  • reliability

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