β Scribed by R.G. Ross Jr.; G.R. Mon; L. Wen; C.C. Gonzalez; R.S. Sugimura
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
As an indication of the evolving nature and continuing growth of photovoltaic technology, thin film amorphous silicon (a-Si) power modules have made their commercial debut during the past two years. Early experience with this technology has highlighted certain failure mechanisms as being the most important to long-term power generation. These include light-induced effects, corrosion of the cell monolithic interconnects, electrochemical corrosion between cells and the module frame, hot-spot heating and UV photodegradation of polymer encapsulants and frame members. Research at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory during 1987 has focused on measuring and characterizing many of these degradation mechanisms. A summary of the results is presented, together with references to recent publications of detailed results in each area.
π SIMILAR VOLUMES
A number of important degradation mechanisms that determine the life of thin-film photovoltaic (PV) modules are driven by voltages and currents, either internal to the module, or between the module and its external mounting environment. Two important mechanisms are electromigration and electrochemic