PVpanel Sim

By Mario Renteria1; Elliott Ivan Gurrola1; Birkir Snær Sigfússon2; Suhas Venkat Baddela; Sourabh Dongaonkar2; Xingshu Sun2; Muhammad Alam2

1. University of Texas at El Paso 2. Purdue University

Two dimensional spice simulation of thin film solar panels, including shunt induced variability, and partial shadow effects.

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Version 2.02 - published on 04 Jan 2018

doi:10.4231/D3D795D04 cite this

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    Panel information pane Partial shading information Lognormal shunt distribution parameters

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Tools

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Abstract

PVpanel Sim is a spice simulation utility for two dimensional simulation of thin film solar panels, using the conventional equivalent circuit for individual cells. The tool incorporates the variability of shunt conduction from cell to cell, and effect of sheet resistance of contact material. This allows the user to assess the gap between cell and module efficiency in thin film technologies. The user can change the distribution of shunts from cell to cell, and vary the contact sheet resistance to understand their effect on panel efficiency. Another feature of the tool allows the user to analyze the effect of partial shadowing the panel due to nearby object in full 2D. The tool calculates the reverse stresses generated on the shaded cells, based on the user defined breakdown characteristics. The second version of this tool adds the capability by adding an enhanced non-linear equivalent circuit more suitable for thin film solar cells.

Credits

Mario R. Pinon, Elliott E. Gurrola, Birkir Snær Sigfússon, Sourabh Dongaonkar, Xingshu Sun, and Muhammad A. Alam

Sponsored by

SRC-ERI Network for Photovoltaic Technology

References

Universality of non-Ohmic shunt leakage in thin-film solar cells,” Journal of Applied Physics
S. Dongaonkar, J. D. Servaites, G. M. Ford, S. Loser, J. Moore, R. M. Gelfand, H. Mohseni, H. W. Hillhouse, R. Agrawal, M. A. Ratner, T. J. Marks, M. S. Lundstrom, and M. A. Alam
vol. 108, no. 12, p. 124509, 2010

Identification, Characterization and Implications of Shadow Degradation in Thin Film Solar Cells
S. Dongaonkar, Y. Karthik, D. Wang, M. Frei, S. Mahapatra, and M. A. Alam
Reliability Physics Symposium (IRPS), 2011 IEEE International, 2011, pp. 5E.4.1 – 5E.4.5.

Physics and Statistics of Non-Ohmic Shunt Conduction and Metastability in Amorphous Silicon p-i-n Solar Cells
S. Dongaonkar, Karthik Y., S. Mahapatra, and M. A. Alam
IEEE Journal of Photovoltaics, 1(2), 111-117, (2011)

End to End Modeling for Variability and Reliability Analysis of Thin Film PV
S. Dongaonkar, and M. A. Alam
2012 IEEE International Reliability Physics Symposium (IRPS 2012), pp. 4A.4.1-4A.4.6

Universal statistics of parasitic shunt formation in solar cells, and its implications for cell to module efficiency gap
S. Dongaonkar, S. Loser, E. J. Sheets, K. Zaunbrecher, R. Agrawal, T. J. Marks, and M. A. Alam
Energy & Environmental Science, vol. 6, pp. 782–787, 2013

Cite this work

Researchers should cite this work as follows:

  • Mario Renteria, Elliott Ivan Gurrola, Birkir Snær Sigfússon, Suhas Venkat Baddela, Sourabh Dongaonkar, Xingshu Sun, Muhammad Alam (2018), "PVpanel Sim," https://nanohub.org/resources/pvpanelsim. (DOI: 10.4231/D3D795D04).

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