Outdoor Assessment and Performance Evaluation of OPV Modules

Abstract

Organic photovoltaic (OPV) modules have significant advantages over conventional PV technologies drawing the attention of R&D activities. The OPV efficiency is increasing closing the gap against silicon-based modules. This article describes an experimental campaign performed at SolarTech <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">LAB</sup> to assess the performance of six OPV modules in real environmental conditions (module nominal power 17.5 Wp). The first part of the activity was dedicated to the photoactivation process, which is a well-known phenomenon of this kind of modules. Measurements pointed out that the OPV modules reach stable conditions after collecting 10 kWh/m <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sup> of solar radiation independently from the module conditions during the procedure. A second relevant result is about the reversibility of the photoactivation process: experiments showed that activated modules left in the dark for several days lose the activation indicating the reversibility of the process. Finally, in the second part, the performances of the six OPV modules have been analyzed and benchmarked against silicon (c-Si) and CIS photovoltaic technology. The measured electric efficiency of the six OPV modules under real environmental conditions was below 4%, which is significantly lower than 20% and 15% measured for c-Si and CIS modules under the same conditions.