Analysis of multicrystalline silicon solar cells by modified 3-diode equivalent circuit model taking leakage current through periphery into consideration

We proposed a modified 3-diode equivalent circuit model for analysis of multicrystalline silicon (Mc-Si) solar cells. By using this equivalent circuit model, we can precisely evaluate the characteristics of Mc-Si solar cells taking the influence of grain boundaries and large leakage current through the peripheries into consideration and extract electrical properties. The calculated value of current-voltage characteristics for small size (3 mm x 3 mm) Mc-Si solar cells using this model completely agreed with the measured value at various cell temperatures. Moreover, the calculated open-circuit voltage (V-oc ) obtained by extracted parameters and measured V-oc agreed well. (C) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.