Testing the Durability and Long-Term Reliability of Solar Cells

Overview

The goal of this research was to test the durability of both amorphous and polycrystalline solar cells when they are exposed to simulated environmental conditions. Solar panels are becoming increasingly available for consumer applications and it is important to ensure that they will be able to remain reliable as they are exposed to the long-term stress of their environment. It was hypothesized that the power output of solar cells will gradually degrade as a result of various accelerated aging tests, possibly bringing the solar cell to the point of complete failure. The amorphous and polycrystalline solar cells were placed through four different accelerated stress tests: thermal cycling, strain testing, freshwater humidity, and damp salt heat testing. For both types of solar cell, power readings were taken before each test to establish a control value for the power. A group of each type of cell were then exposed to a number of trials of a test, taking power readings after each trial as well as taking pictures with a microscope at 40x power in the center of each cell to determine if there was any degradation in the physical makeup of the cell. A gradual decline in power was seen for some tests for the polycrystalline cells. The amorphous cells continued to produce the same amount of power until the exterior circuitry was physically affected, at which point, the cell would completely fail. While the initial hypothesis was proven null in the case of the amorphous cells, and generally insignificant for the polycrystalline cells, further testing explained these results by showing that any degradation to the silicon itself is generally insignificant, but damage done to the electrical system resulted in a serious decline in power production if not total failure. Overall these results indicate that the solar cell itself is relatively durable. The potential weak point lies in the external wiring.

Competition history

• AJAS 2020 Category not listed

Related projects

Closest projects by meaning, across every fair and year in the corpus.

Browse more like this

• AJAS None projects
• Every AJAS 2020 project