Quantifying and Modeling the Impact of Interconnection Failures on the Electrical Performance of Crystalline Silicon Photovoltaic Modules

We present an electrical model developed with LTSPICE that simulates the performance of a string of cells with disconnections in the electrical circuit. In a previous contribution, we quantified experimentally how the module performance is affected when one or more ribbons are cut or disconnected between cells. The measurements were made on mini-modules (strings) of six cells, connected in series by three interconnection ribbons. Here, we use these experimental results to validate our model. Results show that our model is able to describe well the power reduction due to the interruption/removal of the cell interconnecting ribbons, and to reproduce the peculiar shape of the IV curves of a string affected by non-homogeneous distribution of the series resistance within some of the cells.