The temperature influence in the photovoltaic panels performance

This book investigates the effect the temperature will have on solar cells. Usinga finite element simulation software several computational simulations were made in order tostudy this effect. The simulations made for silicon CIGS CdTe and perovskite cells show thatout of all the cells perovskite cells are the least negatively affected by an increase in temperature.In terms of the silicon’s properties it has been found that the decrease in band gap with thetemperature will cause a decrease in the value of the open circuit voltage of the cell which willcause its temperature coefficient to go from -0.37 %/ºC to -0.41 %/ºC which negatively impactsthe maximum power and efficiency of the cell. The increase in the extinction index with thetemperature on the other hand will lead to an increase in the short circuit current which will growfrom 0.005 %/ºC to 0.03 %/ºC which will prove beneficial to the performance of the cell. Alongsidethis a study of various cooling technologies was also conducted where advantages anddrawbacks of each method are discussed