An Illumination- and Temperature-Dependent Analytical Model for Copper Indium Gallium Diselenide (CIGS) Solar Cells

TL;DR

This paper introduces a physics-based analytical model for CIGS solar cells that accurately predicts their I-V characteristics under varying illumination and temperature, aiding in performance optimization and yield prediction.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel analytical model derived from fundamental physics that accounts for environmental effects and shunt variations in CIGS solar cells.

Findings

Model accurately fits experimental I-V data across temperatures and illumination levels.

Parameters can be obtained from independent experiments, enabling practical application.

Model facilitates large-scale simulation for performance optimization.

Abstract

In this paper, we present a physics-based analytical model for CIGS solar cells that describes the illumination- and temperature-dependent current-voltage (I-V) characteristics and accounts for the statistical shunt variation of each cell. The model is derived by solving the drift-diffusion transport equation so that its parameters are physical, and, therefore, can be obtained from independent characterization experiments. The model is validated against CIGS I-V characteristics as a function of temperature and illumination intensity. This physics-based model can be integrated into a large-scale simulation framework to optimize the performance of solar modules as well as predict the long-term output yields of photovoltaic farms under different environmental conditions.