International Journal of Computer Applications (0975 – 8887)

International Conference on Quality Up-gradation in Engineering, Science and Technology (ICQUEST2015)

The Factors Affecting the Performance of Solar Cell

Bhalchandra V. Chikate Y.A. Sadawarte

M-Tech Student Assistant Professor
B.D.C.O.E.Sewagram B.D.C.O.E. Sewagram
Wardha-India Wardha-India
using crystalline silicon solar cells as an example, but the
concept is also applicable to other types of solar cells.

2. PHOTOVOLTAIC ARRAY
ABSTRACT Photovoltaic Arrays essentially consist of a number of
Energy which comes from natural resources such as internal silicon based photovoltaic cells combined in series
sunlight, wind, rain, geothermal heat etc. is called and in parallel, depending on the voltage or current
renewable energy. Renewable energy is very important requirements. These cells are used to convert solar energy
because the non-renewable energy such as petrol, diesel, into electricity. This occurs when the photovoltaic cells are
and fossil fuels are limited. Solar energy is the most easily exposed to solar energy causing the cells electrons to drift
available source of energy. Most important it is non- which, in turn, produces an electric current. This current
conventional source of energy because it is non-polluting, varies with the size of individual cells and the light intensity
clean etc. The influences of temperature and irradiance [2].
variations on the different solar cell parameters are studied.
It is useful to understand the effect of temperature and Photovoltaic cells, or solar cells as they are more commonly
irradiance on the solar cell and module performance, in referred to, are available commercially in a number of
order to estimate their performance under various different semiconductor materials. The most common
conditions. The efficiency of solar module is directly materials are monocrystalline silicon, polycrystalline
related with the solar parameter and therefore solar silicon, amorphous silicon and copper‐indium selenide
parameter changes and affects the efficiency of solar (CIS). These technologies consist of p‐n junction diodes
module. capable of generating electricity from light sources and
usually have efficiencies of 6% ‐ 20% in commercial use.
Keywords
Solar cell; temperature; open circuit voltage; short 2.1 Equivalent Circuit of A PV Cell
circuit current; irradiance; efficiency. The equivalent circuit of a PV cell is demonstrated below
in Figure 1.
1. INTRODUCTION
The term photovoltaic refers to the phenomenon involving
the conversion of sunlight into electrical energy via a solar
cell. In Photovoltaic power generation there are two major
problems which are less conversion efficiency of PV
modules & amount of power generation depends on
weather conditions. And also, the PV cell I-V characteristic
be non-linear due to complex relationship between voltage
and current and vary with change in temperature or
insolation. There is single point on I-V or P-V
characteristics curve knows as Maximum Power Point
where PV system gives highest efficiency and produces Figure1. Equivalent circuit of a PV cell [7]
highest output power.[2] The main source of the power loss Derived from Kirchhoff‘s first law (also referred to as
is the failure to track MPP. So, Maximum Power Point Kirchhoff‘s current law), the output current is given by
Tracking is essential to operate PV system at MPP.
The most important parameters of the solar cell that
I = Iph − ID − Ip
describe the operating conditions are the irradiance and the
temperature. Designer of solar cell asses their devices by
evaluating the efficiency at standard test conditions (STC: (q. (V0 + I. R s ))
illumination =1000 W/m2, temperature=25°C and AM1.5 I = Iph − Isat . (exp − 1)
reference spectrum)[14]. However, these conditions (n. K. Tcell . Ns )
practically never occur during normal outdoor operation as V0 + I. R s
−
they do not take into consideration the actual geographical Rp
and meteorological conditions at the installation site. In this
paper, we discussed the temperature and irradiance
variations effect on the parameters of the solar cells. This
will be explained
Where
I Output current
Iph Photo current

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 International Journal of Computer Applications (0975 – 8887)
International Conference on Quality Up-gradation in Engineering, Science and Technology (ICQUEST2015)
Isat Diode reverses saturation voltage 𝑀𝑎𝑥 𝑐𝑒𝑙𝑙 𝑝𝑜𝑤𝑒𝑟 𝑉𝑚 𝐼𝑚
ƞ= =
Vo Output Voltage 𝐼𝑛𝑐𝑖𝑑𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑙𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡 𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑛𝑠𝑖𝑡𝑦 𝑃𝑖𝑛
𝑉𝑜𝑐 𝐼𝑠𝑐 𝐹𝐹
Rs Series resistance (Representing voltage loss on =
𝑃𝑖𝑛
the way to external connectors) The efficiency is most commonly used parameter to
Rp Parallel resistance (Representing leakage compare the performance of one solar cell to another.
currents) Efficiency depend on solar spectrum, intensity of sunlight
and the temperature of solar cell [7].
k Boltzmann‘s constant
q Charge on electron
3. FACTORS AFFECTING ON PV
CELL GENERATION
Ns Number of cells in series
3.1 Effects of PV technology types
N Ideality factor Many types of PV cells are available today. This section
Tcell Solar panel temperature gives details on the types of the PV cells that are currently
in the manufacturing, research and development stage.
The I-V characteristics of a typical solar cell are as shown
Monocrystalline silicon cells: These cells are made from
in the Figure 2. pure monocrystalline silicon. In these cells, the silicon has a
single continuous crystal lattice structure with almost no
defects or impurities. The main advantage of
monocrystalline cells is their high efficiency, which is
typically around 15%. The disadvantage of these cells is
that a complicated manufacturing process is required to
produce monocrystalline silicon, which results in slightly
higher costs than those of other technologies [7]. Crystalline
silicon cell technology is well established and the PV
modules have long lifetimes (20 years or more).
Multicrystalline silicon cells: A less expensive material,
Multicrystalline silicon, by passes the expensive and
energy-intensive crystal growth process. Multicrystalline
cells are produced using numerous grains of
monocrystalline silicon. In the manufacturing process,
molten Multicrystalline silicon is cast into ingots, which are
subsequently cut into very thin wafers and assembled into
Figure2. I-V characteristics of a solar panel [2] complete cells. Multicrystalline cells are cheaper to produce
than monocrystalline ones because of the simpler
2.2 Parameters of Solar Cell manufacturing process required. They are, however, slightly
Short Circuit Current (Isc): The current is maximum less efficient, with average efficiencies being around 12%
when the two terminals are directly connected with each [14, 7].
other and the voltage is zero. The current in this case is
Amorphous silicon cells: Generally, the main difference
called ‗short circuit‘ current. The short-circuit current is due
between these cells and the previous ones mentioned above
to the generation and collection of light generated carriers.
is that, instead of the crystalline structure, amorphous
Open Circuit Voltage (Voc): When the cell is not silicon cells are composed of silicon atoms in a thin
connected to any load there is no current flowing and the homogenous layer. Additionally, amorphous silicon absorbs
voltage across the PV cell reaches its maximum. This is light more effectively than crystalline silicon, which leads
called ‗open circuit voltage‘. When load is connected to the to thinner cells, also known as a thin film PV technology.
PV cell current flows through the circuit and the voltage Thin film solar has approximately 15% market share; the
goes down. other 85% is crystalline silicon [7]. The greatest advantage
of these cells is that amorphous silicon can be deposited on
Fill Factor (FF): The FF is defined as the maximum power a wide range of substrates, both rigid and flexible. Their
from actual solar cell to the maximum power from ideal disadvantage is the low efficiency, which is on the order of
solar cell. As time goes the PV curve degrades. It is 6%.
essential to check quality of cell periodically. Quality of
cell is determined by fill factor. For a good panel FF is Other types of cells: In addition to the above types, a
between 0.7 to 0.8 while for bad panel it may be 0.4. number of other promising materials, such as CdTe and
copper‐indium selenide (CuInSe), are used today for PV
cells. The main trends today concern the use of polymer and
𝑉𝑚𝑝𝑝 𝐼𝑚𝑝𝑝 organic PV cells. The attraction of these technologies is that
𝐹𝐹 =
𝑉𝑜𝑐 𝐼𝑠𝑐 they potentially offer fast production at low cost in
Efficiency (ƞ): Efficiency is defined as ratio of energy comparison to crystalline silicon technologies, yet they
output from solar cell to input energy from sun. typically have lower efficiencies (around 4%), and despite
the demonstration of operational lifetimes and dark
stabilities under inert conditions for thousands of hours,
they suffer from stability and degradation problems [14].
Each semiconducting material has its own properties which

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 International Journal of Computer Applications (0975 – 8887)
International Conference on Quality Up-gradation in Engineering, Science and Technology (ICQUEST2015)
make it more or less suitable for use in a PV cell. One of
these properties is the so-called band gap, which is the
energy gap an electron must cross in order to be promoted
from the valence band to the conduction band [7]. In the
literature studies, it has been shown that silicon, with its
bandgap of 1.12 eV, is not optimal. Materials with
bandgaps nearer to 1.5 eV, such as GaAs and CdTe, have
higher theoretical efficiencies.
As mentioned above, a single-material PV cell can convert
only about 15% of the available energy to useful electrical
power. To improve this performance, multiple cells with
different band gaps, which are more complex and therefore
more expensive, can be used. These are called multi- Figure3. Effects of irradiation and cell temperature on
junction PVs. Particularly; a triple-junction PV produced PV cell characteristic (a) effect of increased irradiance
recently achieved a remarkable 40% efficiency. This PV and (b) effect of increased cell temperature [8].
consists of three layers of PV material placed one atop the
The influences of temperature and irradiance on the cell
other. Each of the three materials captures a separate
characteristics are shown in Fig. 3. As seen from Fig. 3(a),
portion of the solar spectrum and the objective is to capture
the open circuit voltage increases logarithmically by
as much of the solar spectrum as possible. These are much
increasing the solar radiation, whereas the short circuit
more expensive than other silicon PV cells, but their
current increases linearly. The influence of the cell
efficiency offsets their high cost, and in concentrating
temperature on the cell characteristics is shown in Fig. 3(b).
systems, a small area of these cells is required.
The main effect of the increase in cell temperature is on
Another way to increase the effectiveness of PVs according open circuit voltage, which decreases linearly with the cell
to their technology is to concentrate sunlight on small, temperature; thus the cell efficiency drops. As can be seen,
highly efficient PV cells using inexpensive reflective the short circuit current increases slightly with the increase
material, lenses, or mirrors. These are known as of the cell temperature [8]. The procedure to determine the
concentrating photovoltaic‘s (CPVs). Today, the technology normal operating cell temperature (NOCT) of a PV module
takes up a very small portion of the solar industry; however, included in the IEC standards is based on the fact that the
it is expected that the CPV industry will soon take up a difference between the module temperature Tm and the
larger share of the solar market as technology improves and ambient temperature Tamb can be considered independent
cost comes down [14]. of the ambient temperature and linearly proportional to the
irradiance at levels above 400W/m2. An example of
3.2 Effects of Ambient Conditions application of NOCT determination is the calculation of
There are various ambient conditions that affect the output module temperature from ambient temperature, available
of a PV power system. These factors should be taken into solar irradiance and NOCT following the known equation:
consideration so that the customer has realistic expectations
of overall system output. Module temperature is a E
Tm = Tamb + NOCT − 20
parameter that has great influence in the behavior of a PV 800
system, as it modifies system efficiency and output energy. Where E the irradiance in W/m2.
In addition to this, the atmospheric parameters such as A PV cell‘s energy conversion efficiency (ƞ), is the
irradiance level, ambient temperature, dirt/dust and the percentage of power converted (from absorbed light to
particular installing conditions have influence, too. electrical energy) and collected, when a PV cell is
Temperature effects are the result of a connatural connected to an electrical circuit. This term is calculated
characteristic of crystalline silicon cell-based modules. using the ratio of the maximum power point, Pmax, divided
They tend to produce higher voltage as the temperature by the input light irradiance (E, inW/m2) under standard
drops and, conversely, to lose voltage in high temperatures. test conditions and the surface area of the PV cell (AC in
Any PV module or system derating calculation must m2) [8]:
include adjustment for the temperature effect [6].
Pmax
As temperature increases, the band gap of the η=
semiconductor shrinks, and the open circuit voltage Voc EAc
decreases following the p–n junction voltage temperature The efficiencies in a PV module are decreased with
dependency of seen in the diode factor q/kT. PV cells increasing the module temperature Tm. The variation of a
therefore have a negative temperature coefficient of Voc. sample PV module [ efficiency _ with the module
Moreover, a lower output power results given the same temperature Tm is given by the characteristic in Fig. 4.
photocurrent Iph because the charge carriers are liberated at
a lower potential [7, 9]. As temperature increases, again the
band gap of the intrinsic semiconductor shrinks meaning
more incident energy is absorbed because a greater
percentage of the incident light has enough energy to raise
charge carriers from the valence band to the conduction
band. A larger photocurrent results; therefore, Isc increases
for a given insulation, and PV cells have a positive
temperature coefficient of Isc. This effect would raise the
theoretical maximum power by the relationship below,
Pmax = ISC × VOC

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 International Journal of Computer Applications (0975 – 8887)
International Conference on Quality Up-gradation in Engineering, Science and Technology (ICQUEST2015)
is that a complicated process is required to produce
monocrystalline silicon. Multicrystalline cells are cheaper
to produce than monocrystalline types because of the
simpler manufacturing process required. However, they are
slightly less efficient. As mentioned above, a single-
material PV cell has only about 15% efficiency. To improve
this performance up to 40%, multi-junction cells with
different band gaps can be used, but this technology is more
complex and more expensive. However, another way to
increase the efficiency is to concentrate sunlight on PV cells
using inexpensive reflective material such as lenses, or
Figure4. Relationship of the PV module efficiency (ƞ) mirrors.
and PV module temperature (Tm) [8] There are various ambient conditions such as irradiance,
An effective way of improving efficiency and reducing the temperature and dirt/dust that affect the output of a PV
rate of thermal degradation of a PV module is by reducing power system. The open circuit voltage increases
the operating temperature of its surface. This can be logarithmically by increasing the solar radiation, whereas
achieved by cooling the module and reducing the heat the short circuit current increases linearly and thus, the
stored inside the PV cells during operation. As an example, output power increases. However, the main effect of the
solar-water pumping system can be given. Such a system increase in cell temperature is on open circuit voltage,
consists of a PV module cooled by water, a water pump, which decreases with the cell temperature. The short circuit
and a water storage tank. Cooling of the PV module is current increases slightly with the increase of the cell
achieved by introducing water trickling configuration on the temperature, thus the cell efficiency drops. An effective
upper surface of the module. The results indicated that due way of improving efficiency of a PV module is by reducing
to the heat loss by convection between cooling water and the operating temperature of its surface. This can be
the PV module‘s upper surface, an increase of about 15% in achieved by cooling the module and reducing the heat
system output is achieved at peak solar irradiation stored inside the PV cells during operation. Another
conditions. And also the results of such a system‘s indicated important ambient factor is dirt/dust. Dirt/dust can
that an increase of 5% in delivered energy from the PV accumulate on the PV module surface, blocking some of the
module can be achieved during dry and warm seasons. sunlight and reducing efficiency.

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IJCATM : www.ijcaonline.org 5