Investigation of reliability attributes and accelerated stress factors on terrestrial solar cells. Third annual report

Abstract

The third year of the accelerated reliability testing program concentrated on electrical measurement instrumentation and in modeling cell behavior in the second quadrant. In addition, some preliminary work was done on correlating cell color changes with electrical degradation. Not reported are results of continuing accelerated stress tests on state of the art cells. A number of new cells were added to the program, but not in time for sufficient data to be obtained, while the older cells are undergoing extended test periods and new data are not yet available on them. The all-digital, microprocessor controlled, short interval tester, which was designed and fabricated, has replaced the manual measurement procedure formerly used. This has improved measurement accuracy and repeatability, reduced measurement time, and through coordinated data management procedures, eliminated data errors. A complete description of the tester including schematics and software is given and its operating procedures described. A computer model, based on the thermal and electrical properties of the cells and encapsulating materials, was developed to relate cell temperature to electrical characteristics in the second quadrant. This model adequately predicted the behavior of both encapsulated and unencapsulated cells, although accurate temperature measurements on encapsulated cells were difficult to obtain. In addition, only cells of one type were used for comparison and other cell types may require different parameter values for fitting. Use of the model should permit the prediction of a cell's sensitivity to degradation in the second quadrant. The computer program is listed together with a description of its operation.