Design and Optimization of a Self-Protected Thin Film c-Si Solar Cell against Reverse Bias

Current mismatch due to solar cell failure or partial shading of solar panels may cause a reverse biasing of solar cells inside a photovoltaic (PV) module. The reverse-biased cells consume power instead of generating it, resulting in hot spots. To protect the solar cell against the reverse current,...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Materials 2023-03, Vol.16 (6), p.2511
Main Authors: Saif, Omar M, Zekry, Abdelhalim, Shaker, Ahmed, Abouelatta, Mohammed, Alanazi, Tarek I, Saeed, Ahmed
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Antireflection coatings
Bias
Bypass
Calibration
Circuits
Design optimization
Design parameters
Dielectric films
Diodes
Electric properties
Energy conversion efficiency
Open circuit voltage
Optical properties
Photovoltaic cells
Power consumption
Quantum efficiency
Schottky diodes
Short circuit currents
Silicon
Simulation
Solar cells
Solar energy industry
Thickness
Thin films
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Summary:Current mismatch due to solar cell failure or partial shading of solar panels may cause a reverse biasing of solar cells inside a photovoltaic (PV) module. The reverse-biased cells consume power instead of generating it, resulting in hot spots. To protect the solar cell against the reverse current, we introduce a novel design of a self-protected thin-film crystalline silicon (c-Si) solar cell using TCAD simulation. The proposed device achieves two distinct functions where it acts as a regular solar cell at forward bias while it performs as a backward diode upon reverse biasing. The ON-state voltage ( ) of the backward equivalent diode is found to be 0.062 V, which is lower than the value for the Schottky diode usually used as a protective element in a string of solar cells. Furthermore, enhancement techniques to improve the electrical and optical characteristics of the self-protected device are investigated. The proposed solar cell is enhanced by optimizing different design parameters, such as the doping concentration and the layers' thicknesses. The enhanced cell structure shows an improvement in the short-circuit current density ( and the open-circuit voltage ( ), and thus an increased power conversion efficiency (PCE) while the is increased due to an increase of the . Moreover, the simulation results depict that, by the introduction of an antireflection coating (ARC) layer, the external quantum efficiency (EQE) is enhanced and the PCE is boosted to 22.43%. Although the inclusion of ARC results in increasing , it is still lower than the value of for the Schottky diode encountered in current protection technology.
ISSN:1996-1944
1996-1944
DOI:10.3390/ma16062511