Reliability of modules with high efficiency solar cells with copper plated contacts

DuraMAT 1.0 Project

Module Materials Solutions

Recipient Arizona State University (PI: Bowden / Mani)

Subs NREL University of Delaware

Status Awarded

Abstract Copper plating features in the ITRPV roadmap but there is little published work in the scientific literature on the degradation mechanisms and the interaction with module encapsulant. Under this proposal we evaluate the reliability of copper plated cells within a module for two modern architectures PERC cells and silicon heterojunction solar cells.