Measurement of current–voltage characteristics of curved photovoltaic modules for vehicle integration

Curved surfaces look smart for automotive customers, however, are not easily accommodated by conventional flat photovoltaic (PV) panel technology. One of the major challenges for curved PV technology is to develop a consensus method for measuring the current–voltage characteristics of curved PV modules. In this study, we first investigated the current–voltage characteristics of a flexible crystalline silicon (c-Si) solar cell on a curved stage and modeled the effect of the solar cell curvature on the current characteristic. Then, we characterized the irradiance distribution of a solar simulator for a large PV module with an illumination area of 200 × 140 cm², including spatial light intensity and incident light angle distributions. Based on these results, we demonstrated that the measured current–voltage curve of a curved c-Si PV module with a size of ∼120 × 70 cm² and a curvature radius of 1000 mm matched the calculated current–voltage curves considering the irradiation characteristics of the solar simulator and the current–voltage curve of a flat PV module. The requirements for the solar simulator used to measure the current–voltage characteristics of a curved PV module are discussed.