Dye-sensitized solar cell scale-up: Influence of substrate resistance

Dye-sensitized solar cells can be considered as a future candidate to complement current photovoltaic systems; however, scaling-up the dye-sensitized solar cell is a complicated issue. One of the challenges is the module resistance, which includes the resistance of the transparent conducting oxide substrate. By increasing the substrate area, the internal module series resistance increases, resulting in a decrease of the fill factor; hence, charge collectors must be introduced in the module. In this work, silver lines are incorporated in a mini-module design and the dependence of distance between the two silver current collectors, on the working and counter electrode sides, respectively, and the module series resistance is illustrated. A module of 7 cells with 0.60 mm silver lines, and 23.8 cm(2) of active surface area reached an efficiency of 4.8%. (C) 2016 AIP Publishing LLC.