PHOTOVOLTAIC

Chapter 8
From : Renewable and Efficient Electric Power
Systems
Gilbert M. Masters
Stanford University

1
Solar Power

2
 Uses of solar energy
• Solar heating
– A solar thermal collector collects heat by absorbing sunlight. The term "solar collector"
commonly refers to a device for solar hot water heating, but may refer to large power
generating installations such as solar parabolic troughs and solar towers or non water
heating devices such as solar air heaters.
• Photovoltaic
– Photovoltaics (PV) is the conversion of light into electricity using semiconducting
materials which generate electrical power.
• Solar thermal energy
– Solar thermal energy (STE) is a form of energy and a technology for harnessing solar
energy to generate thermal energy or electrical energy for use in industry, and in the
residential and commercial sectors.
• Water heating
• Heating, cooling and ventilation
• Cooking
• Process heat
• Solar architecture
– Solar architecture is an architectural approach that takes in account the Sun to harness
clean and renewable solar power.
– In passive solar building design, windows, walls, and floors are made to collect, store,
reflect, and distribute solar energy in the form of heat in the winter and reject solar heat
in the summer. 3
 Advantages
• Solar energy is free although there is a cost in the building of ‘collectors’ and
other equipment required to convert solar energy into electricity or hot water.
• Solar energy does not cause pollution. However, solar collectors and other
associated equipment / machines are manufactured in factories that in turn
cause some pollution.
• Solar energy can be used in remote areas where it is too expensive to extend
the electricity power grid.
• Many everyday items such as calculators and other low power consuming
devices can be powered by solar energy effectively.
• It is estimated that the worlds oil reserves will be depleted in near future. On
the other hand, solar energy is infinite (forever).
• PV installations can operate for 100 years or even more with little
maintenance or intervention after their initial set-up, so after the initial
capital cost of building any solar power plant, operating costs are extremely
low compared to existing power technologies.
• Grid-connected solar electricity can be used locally thus reducing
transmission/distribution losses.
4
 Disadvantages
1. Solar energy can only be harnessed when it is daytime and
sunny.
2. Solar collectors, panels and cells are relatively expensive to
manufacture although prices are falling rapidly.
3. Solar power stations can be built but they do not match the
power output of similar sized conventional power stations.
They are also very expensive.
4. In countries such as the UK, the unreliable climate means
that solar energy is also unreliable as a source of energy.
Cloudy skies reduce its effectiveness.
5. Large areas of land are required to capture the energy.
6. Solar power is used to charge batteries so that it can be used
at night. However, the batteries are large and heavy and need
storage space. They also need replacing from time to time.
5
6
• The amount of solar energy reaching the ground, as well as its spectral distribution,
depends very much on how much atmosphere it had to pass through to get there.
• air mass ratio(m): the length of the path taken by the sun’s rays through the
atmosphere to reach a spot on the ground, divided by the path length corresponding
to the sun directly overhead, is called the air mass ratio.

• air mass ratio of 1 (designated “AM1”) means that the sun is directly
overhead.
• AM0 means no atmosphere; that is, it is the extraterrestrial solar spectrum.
• For most photovoltaic work, an air mass ratio of 1.5, corresponding to the
sun is 42 degrees above the horizon, is assumed to be the standard. 7
 s

For an AM 1.5 spectrum, 2% of the incoming solar energy is in the UV

portion of the spectrum, 54% is in the visible, and 44% is in the infrared. 8
 Silicon solar cell
• We know the band gap for silicon is 1.12 eV,
corresponding to a wavelength of 1. 11 µm,
which means that any energy in the solar
spectrum with wavelengths longer than 1 . 11
µm cannot send an electron into the
conduction band.
• And, any photons with wavelength less than 1.
11 µm waste their extra energy.

9
10
• Since power is the product of current and voltage, there must be some middle-
ground band gap, usually estimated to be between 1.2 eV and 1.8 eV, which will
result in the highest power and efficiency.
• a small band gap means that more photons have surplus energy above the
threshold needed to create hole – electron pairs, which wastes their potential.
• A high band gap means that fewer photons have enough energy to create the
current-carrying electrons and holes, which limits the current that can be
generated.

11
 The p – n Junction
• As long as a solar cell is exposed to photons with energies above the
band-gap energy, hole – electron pairs will be created.
• The problem is, of course, that those electrons can fall right back
into a hole, causing both charge carriers to disappear.
• To avoid that recombination, electrons in the conduction band must
continuously be swept away from holes. In PVs this is accomplished
by creating a built-in electric field within the semiconductor itself
that pushes electrons in one direction and holes in the other.
• To create the electric field, two regions are established within the
crystal. On one side of the dividing line separating the regions, pure
(intrinsic) silicon is purposely contaminated with very small
amounts of a trivalent element from column III of the periodic
chart; on the other side, pentavalent atoms from column V are
added.
12
 n - type material
• the semiconductor that has been doped with a pentavalent element from column
5 such as phosphorus only about 1 phosphorus atom per 1000 silicon atoms is
typical as shown in Fig. 8.12.
• Four of its five electrons are now tightly bound, but the fifth electron is left on its
own to roam around the crystal.
• each donor atom can be represented as a single, fixed, immobile positive charge
plus a freely roaming negative charge as shown in Fig. 8.12b
• Since there are now negative charges that can move around the crystal, a
semiconductor doped with donor atoms is referred to as an “n - type material .”

13
 p - type material
• On the other side of the semiconductor, silicon is doped with a trivalent element
such as boron. Again the concentration of dopants is small, something on the
order of 1 boron atom per 10 million silicon atoms.
• Since each of these impurity atoms has only three electrons, only three of the
covalent bonds are filled, which means that a positively charged hole appears next
to its nucleus.
• An electron from a neighboring silicon atom can easily move into the hole, so
these impurities are referred to as acceptors since they accept electrons.
• each acceptor has created a positively charged hole that is free to move around in
the crystal, so this side of the semiconductor is called a p - type material.

14
 The p – n Junction
• The width of the depletion region is only about 1 µm and the voltage across it is
perhaps 1 V, which means the field strength is about 10,000 V/cm!

15
 A GENERIC PHOTOVOLTAIC CELL

• A material or device that is capable of converting the energy contained in photons

of light into an electrical voltage and current is said to be photovoltaic.
• when p-n junction is exposed to sunlight, photons are absorbed, hole-electron
pairs may be formed.
• If these mobile charge carriers reach the neighborhood of the junction, the electric
field in the depletion region will push the holes into the p -side and push the
electrons into the n -side, as shown in Fig. 8.16.
• The p -side accumulates holes and the n –side accumulates electrons, which
creates a voltage that can be used to deliver current to a load.

16
• If electrical contacts are attached to the top and bottom of the cell, electrons will
flow out of then n-side into the connecting wire, through the load and back to the
p-side as shown in Fig. 8.17.
• By convention, positive current flows in the direction opposite to electron flow, so
the current arrow in the figure shows current going from the p -side to the load
and back into the n -side.

17
 The Simplest Equivalent Circuit for a
Photovoltaic Cell
• A simple equivalent circuit model for a photovoltaic cell consists of a real diode in
parallel with an ideal current source as shown in Fig. 8.18.

18
19
20
• Short-circuit current
• Open-circuit voltage

21
22
23
 A More Accurate Equivalent Circuit for a PV Cell

• consider the impact of shading on a string of cells wired in series.

• If any cell in the string is in the dark (shaded), it produces no current.
• In our simplified equivalent circuit for the shaded cell, the current through that
cell’s current source is zero.
• This means that the simple equivalent circuit suggests that no power will be
delivered to a load if any of its cells are shaded.

24
• we need a more complex model if we are going to be able to deal with realities such as the
shading problem.

25
• original PV equivalent circuit has been modified to just include some series
resistance, RS.
• Some of this might be contact resistance associated with the bond between the
cell and its wire leads, and some might be due to the resistance of the
semiconductor itself.

26
27
• An even better equivalent circuit will include series resistance as well as
parallel resistance.

28
• A plot of (8.18) obtained this way for an equivalent circuit
with RS = 0.05 and RP = 1 is shown in Fig. 8.27.

29
 FROM CELLS TO MODULES TO ARRAYS
• A typical module has 36 cells in series and is often designated as a “12-V module”
• Multiple modules, in turn, can be wired in series to increase voltage and in parallel
to increase current, the product of which is power.
• An important element in PV system design is deciding how many modules should
be connected in series and how many in parallel to deliver whatever energy is
needed. Such combinations of modules are referred to as an array.

30
31
32
 From Modules to Arrays
• For modules in series, the I – V curves are simply added along the voltage axis.
• For modules in parallel, the same voltage is across each module and the total
current is the sum of the currents.

33
34
 THE PV I – V CURVE UNDER STANDARD TEST CONDITIONS (STC)

At the two ends of the I – V curve, the output power is zero since either current or voltage is
zero at those points. The maximum power point (MPP) is that spot near the knee of the I – V
curve at which the product of current and voltage reaches its maximum.

35
• Another quantity that is often used to characterize module performance is the fill
factor (FF).
• The fill factor is the ratio of the power at the maximum power point to the product
of VOC and ISC, so FF can be visualized as the ratio of two rectangular areas, as is
suggested in Fig.

36
37
IMPACTS OF TEMPERATURE AND INSOLATION ON I–V
CURVES

38
Shading impacts on I–V curves

39
40
41
Bypass Diodes for Shade Mitigation

42
Blocking Diodes

43
 Types of Solar Panels
• Monocrystalline Solar Panels (1st Generation)
– Monocrystalline solar panels (or mono panels) are
made from monocrystalline solar cells. Each cell is
a slice of a single crystal of silicon that is grown
expressly for the purpose of creating solar panels.
– Distinctive for their black color, monocrystalline
solar panels typically have an efficiency range of
between 15% to 20%, with some newer
experimental models even reaching close to 50%.

44
• Polycrystalline solar panels (1st Generation)
– Also referred to as “multi-crystalline” panels,
Polycrystalline are often considered the mid-range panel.
– polycrystalline cells are made from many (Poly)
fragments of silicon crystal melted together. For this
reason, Polycrystalline solar panels have a lower
efficiency. This is because there is less freedom for the
electrons to move, as there are many crystals in each cell.
– Polycrystalline cells can be identified by their blue finish,
rectangular shape, and speckles. They appear blue and
speckled, as they contain many crystals in each cell, and
because of the way the sunlight reflects off these crystals.

45
46
 Mono vs. poly solar panels: key metrics

MONOCRYSTALLINE PANELS POLYCRYSTALLINE PANELS

Aesthetics Solar cells are black in color Solar cells have a blueish color

Cost More expensive Less expensive

Efficiency More efficient Less efficient

Temperature Lower temperature Higher temperature coefficient/less

coefficient coefficient/more effective when effective when temperature
temperature changes changes

Lifespan 25+ years 25+ years

47
Thin-Film Solar Cells (2nd Generation)
• These cells are different types of thin film solar cells and are mainly
used for photovoltaic power stations, integrated in buildings or
smaller solar systems.
• Thin-film solar panels are manufactured by placing one or more
films of photovoltaic material (such as silicon, cadmium or copper)
onto a substrate.
• These types of solar panels are the easiest to produce and
economies of scale make them cheaper than the alternatives due
to less material being needed for their production.
• They are also flexible—which opens a lot of opportunities for
alternative applications—and is less affected by high temperatures.
• Moreover, they carry the shortest warranties because their lifespan
is shorter than the mono- and polycrystalline types of solar panels.
• However, they can be a good option to choose among the
different types of solar panels where a lot of space is available .
48
Amorphous Silicon Solar Cell (A-Si)
• This type of solar panel uses a triple-layered technology, which
is the best of the thin film variety.
• Have you ever used a solar-powered pocket calculator? Yes?
Then you have definitely seen these types of solar panels
before. The amorphous silicon solar cell is among the different
types of solar panels, the one that is used mainly in such
pocket calculators.
• Just to give a brief impression of what “thin” means, in this
case, we’re talking about a thickness of 1 micrometer (one-
millionth of a meter). With only 7% efficiency rate, these cells
are less effective than crystalline silicon ones—which have an
efficiency rate of 18%—but the advantage is the fact that the
A-Si-Cells are relatively low in cost.
49
3 Generation Solar Panels
rd

• 3rd generation solar panels include a variety

of thin film technologies but most of them are
still in the research or development phase.
Some of them generate electricity by using
organic materials, others use inorganic
substances (CdTe for instance).
– Biohybrid Solar Cell
– Cadmium Telluride Solar Cell (CdTe)

50
51
Half cut solar panels
• Half-cut solar cell technology increases the energy output of solar
panels by reducing the size of the cells, so more can fit on the panel.
By delivering more power per square meter, fewer panels are
required to generate the same power.
• The panel is then split in half so the top operates independently of
the bottom, which means more energy is created - even if one-half is
shaded.
• With a half-cut cell, hot spots will not be as damaging because there
are more cells to spread the excess heat to.
• Half-cut cells also reduce power loss suffered by traditional panels by
reducing internal resistance. Internal series resistance occurs just by
the nature of energy traveling through the panel via electric current.
But because solar cells are cut in half, there is less current generated
from each cell, meaning less resistive losses.
• These panels are more expensive because they are more challenging
to manufacture, with increased soldering steps and laser cutting. 52
53
54