In photovoltaic module manufacturing processes, it is essential to achieve high production reliability of modules based on the given cells with scattered characteristics. This study aims to investigate the optimal cell sorting method to minimize the deviation of module power via simulation analysis.
Sorting of solar cells is a vital step to achieve the predetermined power out of the photovoltaic module, nevertheless there is a lack of detailed investigations of all relevant parameters defining the global module efficiency. Sorting methods tend to rely on simple electrical parameters such as P-MAX, I-MPP, and I-SC.
This study aims to investigate the optimal cell sorting method to minimize the deviation of module power via simulation analysis. We consider the given solar cells to have different electrical characteristics with Gaussian distributions and ideal interconnections.
Meanwhile, a particular sorting method of PV cells will impact the performance variance of the modules considering limitedly produced cells with different characteristics in production lines.
We consider the given solar cells to have different electrical characteristics with Gaussian distributions and ideal interconnections. We examine the resultant power distributions of modules for various cell sorting methods based on multiple cell parameters such as maximum power current, maximum power voltage, and maximum power of the cells.
Our results reveal that different sorting methods lead to only slight variations in the average maximum module power, but sorting cells based on their average maximum power can significantly reduce the standard deviation of the maximum power of the modules.