Effect of Laser Scribing in High Efficiency Crystal Photovoltaic Cells to Produce Shingled Photovoltaic Module

The high power of a shingled photovoltaic module can be attributed to its low cell-to-module loss. The production of high power modules in limited area requires high efficiency solar cells. Shingled photovoltaic modules can be made by divided solar cells, which can be produced by the laser scribing process. After dividing the 21% PERC cell using laser scribing, the efficiency decreased by approximately 0.35%. However, there was no change in the efficiency of the solar cell having relatively lower efficiency, because the laser scribing process induce higher heat damages in solar cells with high efficiency. To prove this phenomena, the J0 (leakage current density) of each cell was analyzed. It was found that the J0 of 21% PERC increased about 17 times between full and divided solar cell. However, the J0 of 20.2% PERC increased only about 2.5 times between full and divided solar cell.