Optimized Design of Silicon Heterojunction Solar Cells for Field Operating Conditions

Solar modules are currently characterized at standard test conditions (STC), defined at 1000 W/m(2) and 25 degrees C. However, solar modules in actual outdoor operating conditions typically operate at lower illumination and higher temperature than STC, which significantly affects their performance ratio (average harvesting efficiency over efficiency in STC). Silicon heterojunction (SHJ) technology displays both good temperature coefficient and good low-illumination performances, leading to outstanding performance ratios. We investigate here SHJ solar cells that use a-SiCx(n) layer as front doped layer with different carbon contents under different climates conditions. Adding carbon increases transparency but also resistive losses at room temperature (compared with carbon-free layers), leading to a significant decrease in efficiency at STC. We demonstrate that despite this difference at STC, the difference in energy harvesting efficiency is much smaller in all investigated climates. Furthermore, we show that a relative gain of 0.4%-0.8% in harvesting efficiency is possible by adding a certain content of carbon in the front (n) layer, compared with carbon-free cells optimized for STC.