Dissertation
Cost-Effective Techniques to Improve the Performance and Efficiency of CdTe Solar Modules
Washington State University
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Washington State University
12/2019
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.7273/000005554
Abstract
The shortage in supplying the electricity has stimulated many countries to generate more electricity from clean sources such as utilizing the solar energy in producing the required electricity through using the photovoltaics (PV) technology. Recently, the competition between different PV technologies has started to control the biggest portion of the electricity market. Cadmium telluride (CdTe) PV technology has many traits over the silicon one. However, the decline in the performance because of the increase in their temperature, their high initial investment cost, and low efficiency because the low open-circuit voltage (Voc) could all together limit the extensive utilization of CdTe solar modules. A simple, cheap, and commercially applicable passive cooling mechanism has been presented to mitigate the elevated temperatures problem. It uses a flat sheet of aluminum to perform dual functions; a flat solar concentrator and a heat extractor. The high initial investment cost and the low Voc of the CdTe solar module have been addressed by presenting new cost-effective and doped absorber materials with tailored characteristics to enable high-efficiency CdTe solar modules. High-pressure Bridgman (HPB) technique has been used to achieve this dual-task by combining the synthesize, growth, and doping of CdTe and CdSeTe feedstock materials for CdTe solar modules into one process.The results of the passive cooling technique showed that a concentrator angle of 30o to 40o from the vertical with a thickness of 0.01905 m would be the best selection to guarantee a good balance between high output power and high efficiency for the CdTe solar module. The synthesis, growth, and doping of the feedstock materials have been successfully conducted into a single step by using the HPB. The HPB offers higher growth rates, lower growth time, higher purity than other growth techniques, and the feedstock materials mass could be scaled to more than >20 kg with a cost reduction of 45% per kg. The measured active doping concentration was ~1017 cm-3 and bulk lifetime was from 5 to 40 ns in a deposited solar cell which can raise the efficiency of CdTe solar modules above the present record.
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Details
- Title
- Cost-Effective Techniques to Improve the Performance and Efficiency of CdTe Solar Modules
- Creators
- Tawfeeq Kadheem Al-Hamdi
- Contributors
- Kelvin G. Lynn (Chair)Konstantin Matveev (Committee Member) - Washington State University, Mechanical and Materials Engineering, School ofJin Liu (Committee Member) - Washington State University, Mechanical and Materials Engineering, School of
- Awarding Institution
- Washington State University
- Academic Unit
- Mechanical and Materials Engineering, School of
- Theses and Dissertations
- Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Washington State University
- Publisher
- Washington State University
- Number of pages
- 253
- Identifiers
- 99901054232001842
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Dissertation