Experimental Evidence of PID Effect on CIGS Photovoltaic Modules

Sofiane Boulhidja, Adel Mellit, Sebastian Voswinckel, Vanni Lughi, Alessandro Ciocia, Filippo Spertino and Alessandro Massi Pavan
Additional contact information
Sofiane Boulhidja: Renewable Energy Laboratory, Faculty of Sciences and Technology, Jijel University, Ouled-Aissa P.O. Box. 98, Jijel 18000, Algeria
Adel Mellit: Renewable Energy Laboratory, Faculty of Sciences and Technology, Jijel University, Ouled-Aissa P.O. Box. 98, Jijel 18000, Algeria
Sebastian Voswinckel: RET—Institute for Renewable Energy Technology, University of Applied Sciences Nordhausen Weinberghof 4, 99734 Nordhausen, Germany
Vanni Lughi: Department of Engineering and Architecture, University of Trieste, Via A. Valerio, 6/A, 34127 Trieste, Italy
Alessandro Ciocia: Department of Energy Engineering “Galileo Ferraris”, Polytechnic of Turin, Corso Duca Degli Abruzzi, 24, 10129 Turin, Italy
Filippo Spertino: Department of Energy Engineering “Galileo Ferraris”, Polytechnic of Turin, Corso Duca Degli Abruzzi, 24, 10129 Turin, Italy
Alessandro Massi Pavan: Department of Engineering and Architecture, University of Trieste, Via A. Valerio, 6/A, 34127 Trieste, Italy

Energies, 2020, vol. 13, issue 3, 1-16

Abstract: As well known, potential induced degradation (PID) strongly decreases the performance of photovoltaic (PV) strings made of several crystalline silicon modules in hot and wet climates. In this paper, PID tests have been performed on commercial copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS) modules to investigate if this degradation may be remarkable also for CIGS technology. The tests have been conducted inside an environmental chamber where the temperature has been set to 85 °C and the relative humidity to 85%. A negative potential of 1000 V has been applied to the PV modules in different configurations. The results demonstrate that there is a degradation affecting the maximum power point and the fill factor of the current-voltage ( I - V ) curves. In fact, the measurement of the I - V curves at standard test condition show that all the parameters of the PV modules are influenced. This reveals that CIGS modules suffer PID under high negative voltage: this degradation occurs by different mechanisms, such as shunting, observed only in electroluminescence images of modules tested with negative bias. After the stress test, PID is partially recovered by applying a positive voltage of 1000 V and measuring the performance recovery of the degraded modules. The leakage currents flowing during the PID test in the chamber are measured with both positive and negative voltages; this analysis indicates a correlation between leakage current and power losses in case of negative potential.

Keywords: photovoltaic modules; CIGS cells; bias; potential induced degradation; leakage current (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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