Electrical performance analysis and optimization of monofacial and bifacial crystalline silicon solar cells

Abstract

This paper presents the investigations and performance analysis of monofacial and bifacial crystalline silicon solar cells with PC1D simulation software. The fundamental limitation in the monofacial solar cell’s performance is its inability to absorb all the incoming solar radiation since the albedo effect (ground-reflected light that can be captured by the rear of the solar cell) is often neglected. So, the efficiency of the monofacial cell will be lower due to poor and incomplete optical absorption. Bifaciality helps to enhance the capturing of light in the solar cell, which means that the rear of the cell is exposed to solar radiation to produce electrical power. The primary focus of our work is to determine which solar cell offers better device performance and conversion efficiency by analyzing various parameters of the solar cell like surface texturing, emitter doping, bulk doping, minority carrier lifetime, bulk and surface recombination rates, front and rear reflectance, among other parameters. The other parameters are maintained at an optimal range to achieve the highest conversion efficiency. Our work has shown that the bifacial solar cell can be as efficient as 28.15%, which is much better than the 22.65% efficiency of the monofacial solar cell.