Optimal solar cell sorting method for high module production reliability

In photovoltaic module manufacturing processes, it is essential to achieve high production reliability of modules based on the given cells with scattered characteristics. This study aims to investigate the optimal cell sorting method to minimize the deviation of module power via simulation analysis. We consider the given solar cells to have different electrical characteristics with Gaussian distributions and ideal interconnections. We examine the resultant power distributions of modules for various cell sorting methods based on multiple cell parameters such as maximum power current, maximum power voltage, and maximum power of the cells. Our simulation shows that the average power maximum of the modules in different sorting methods has a marginal difference, and the mismatch loss by different cell characteristics is not a key factor to reduce the module reliability, but the standard deviation of the maximum powers of modules can be largely reduced by one order of magnitude if the cells are sorted out based on the reference of the average power maximum of the participated cells. Our study will provide useful guidance for cost-efficient and reliable photovoltaic modules in the manufacturing process.