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Characteristics of bifacial solar cells under bifacial illumination with various intensity levels
Author(s) -
Ohtsuka H.,
Sakamoto M.,
Koyama M.,
Tsutsui K.,
Uematsu T.,
Yazawa Y.
Publication year - 2001
Publication title -
progress in photovoltaics: research and applications
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.286
H-Index - 131
eISSN - 1099-159X
pISSN - 1062-7995
DOI - 10.1002/pip.336
Subject(s) - triode , suns in alchemy , optics , common emitter , optoelectronics , materials science , saturation current , resistive touchscreen , electrical engineering , physics , voltage , resistor , engineering
The characteristics of bifacial solar cells with different rear structures were investigated under front, rear and bifacial illumination with an intensity of 0.4–4.2 suns. Five kinds of solar cells, rear flat local‐BSF cells, rear textured local‐BSF cells (textured RLB cells), rear total‐BSF cells, rear floating‐emitter cells, and triode cells with double‐sided junctions, were tested. The I–V characteristics of the cells under bifacial illumination were measured with a newly designed measurement system that simultaneously illuminated both surfaces of the cells. In the short‐circuit current ( J SC ) and the saturation current evaluations, the bifacial illumination effect, which means that the power output of the cell is intrinsically improved by adding rear illumination, was not observed. Although the RLB cells showed a nonlinear increase in J SC and enhanced V OC , these increases did not make a practical contribution to extra output because of the low levels of these characteristics. When we evaluated the maximum output power, the bifacial illumination effect was only observed in the triode cell. A triode cell can decrease resistive loss by introducing light from both surfaces, compared with a conventional cell with one junction. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.