SINGLE-STEP FABRICATION OF A PHOTOVOLTAIC MODULE USING ENCAPSULANTS WITH LOW MELTING TEMPERATURE METAL RIBBONS EMBEDDED

摘要

Flexible and light photovoltaic modules are demanded for being installed on the surfaces of curved objects, aesthetic buildings, electric vehicles, and so forth. Accordingly, thin silicon solar cells with high photoconversion efficiency and mechanical flexibility are being paid attention. However, they are vulnerable to thermal shock which results from a high temperature soldering method, and thermomechanical stress which occurs a molten solder alloy is solidified. In addition, they hardly endure mechanical stresses which occur in the layup process. Here, a novel interconnection method is presented using encapsulants with low melting temperature metal ribbons embedded. The low temperature process and the elimination of tabbing and stringing processes not only greatly reduce a break loss of thin silicon solar cells but also simplify the fabrication steps of silicon photovoltaic modules. The resulting silicon photovoltaic modules exhibits a relative photoconversion efficiency of 99.9±0.6% with respect to conventional silicon photovoltaic modules.