Reliability and Manufacturing Demonstrations of a New Photovoltaic Module Architecture and Streamlined Approach to Encpasulation

Abstract

New photovoltaic module encapsulation technology is under development that can help achieve Department of Energy SunShot utility solar cost goals of $0.03/kWh by lowering manufacturing cost and improving module reliability. Vacuum lamination-based encapsulation can take up to 20 minutes to complete, has high operating cost, and requires a large factory footprint. Current encapsulation architectures are the source of several module degradation issues. A new module architecture and streamlined process is demonstrated to show under 30 second cycle time for each process and improved reliability. Modules are fabricated on industry ready tools and undergo several accelerated tests.