Long term behaviour of passively heated or cooled a-Si:H modules

We compare the outdoor performance of single junction a-Si:H PV-modules which were mounted in three different ways. One was thermally well isolated against convection and radiation losses in order to reach maximum operating temperatures. A second one was fixed onto a radiator to keep its temperature as close as possible to the air temperature. A third one served as a reference and was mounted with an open back side. The operating temperature of the modules could be strongly influenced by the different mountings. Although a high operating temperature results in a reduced V/sub OC/, it turned out to be beneficial for effective energy conversion in the long term due to a strongly reduced Staebler-Wronski degradation.

[1]  P. Roubeau,et al.  "Capthel", a 66% efficient hybrid solar module and the "Ecothel" co-generation solar system , 1994, Proceedings of 1994 IEEE 1st World Conference on Photovoltaic Energy Conversion - WCPEC (A Joint Conference of PVSC, PVSEC and PSEC).

[2]  T. Townsend,et al.  Effects of irradiance and other factors on PV temperature coefficients , 1991, The Conference Record of the Twenty-Second IEEE Photovoltaic Specialists Conference - 1991.

[3]  Y. Ichikawa,et al.  Large-area amorphous silicon solar cells with high stabilized efficiency and their fabrication technology , 1993, Conference Record of the Twenty Third IEEE Photovoltaic Specialists Conference - 1993 (Cat. No.93CH3283-9).