Highly conductive coated wires for interconnection of solar cells with TECC-wire technology

TECC-Wire (thermoplastic and electrically conductive coated wire) represents a promising interconnection technology for temperature sensitive solar cells. TECC-Wire uses round copper wires (160–300 μm) coated with a thermoplastic polymer layer (10–20 μm), filled with electrically conductive particles. This study presents a new wire coating formulation based on a polyamide-type wire enamel (Voltatex® 8609 ECO, melting temperature 180 °C), filled with 12 vol% silver resulting in a conductivity of 480 S/cm. Single half-cut M6 heterojunction (SHJ) solar cells were contacted with the manufactured wires using a laboratory scale stringing machine. Peel tests were performed to characterize the adhesion of the wires to the cell surface, module performance was evaluated using electroluminescence (EL) imaging and current-voltage (IV) measurements, damp heat (DH) tests were used to evaluate the long-term stability of the modules. The wires adhere well to the cells with a peel force of more than 1.5 N/mm, and the highly conductive coating has proven to be robust when contacted with different pressure, which might be beneficial for a reliable high throughput solar module production. The obtained fill factor FF = 81.25 ± 0,12 % is similar to those achieved for solar modules connected via standard soldering techniques IEC standard DH tests confirmed that, the modules exhibiting a power loss of less than 5 % after 1000 h of storage at +85 °C and 85 % relative humidity. These results are very encouraging for further development of the technology towards a low temperature, solder-free, low cost and robust cell interconnection technology. • Wires coated with electrically conductive thermoplastic adhesives. • Electrically conductive thermoplastic adhesive. • Formulation of electrically conductive wire enamel. • Wire coating process.