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Solar Energy and its Conversion Challenges

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VOLUME 26 Journal of Chengdu University of Technology

Solar Energy and its Conversion Challenges

*1
Dr.A.MohamedSikkander,2Mr.Rajkamal, 3Dr.K.Kavitha,4Ms.Khadeeja Yasmeen
*1
Associate Professor and Head, Department of Chemistry, Velammal Engineering College,
Chennai-INDIA
2
Assistant Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Velammal Engineering
College, Chennai-INDIA
3
Assistant Professor, Department of Chemistry, Velammal Engineering College, Chennai-
INDIA
4
Department of Biotechnology, North East Frontier Technical University, Arunachal
Pradesh

Email id: [email protected], [email protected],[email protected],

[email protected] ,
Abstract:
Sun is a never-ending resource of power dexterous of acceptable each and every one the energy needs of
human race. The energy from the sun can be renewed into electricity or used trustily. The
principal dispute however face the solar energy future is its unavailability all‐round the year, united with its
high resources cost and scarcity of the resources for PV cells. These challenges can be met by developing an
efficient energy storage system and developing cheap, efficient, and profuse PV solar cells. Solar energy also
has unswerving appliance in agriculture first and foremost for water treatment and irrigation. The for the
most part exciting leeway for solar energy is satellite power station that will be transmitting electrical
energy from the solar panels in space to Earth by the use of microwave beams. Solar energy has a bright
future because of the technological advancement in this field and its environment‐ friendly nature. This
article discusses the solar energy system as a whole and provides a comprehensive review on the direct and
the indirect ways to produce electricity from solar energy and the direct uses of solar energy. The
state‐of‐the‐art procedures being employed for PV characterization and performance rating have been
summarized. Moreover, the technical, economic, environmental, and storage‐related challenges are
discussed with possible solutions. Furthermore, a comprehensive list of future potential research directions
in the field of direct and indirect electricity generation from solar energy is proposed.
Keywords: Green technology, Recombination losses, Loss of low energy photons, Voltage loss, Fill Factor
loss, Loss by reflection,

Introduction:
wind and biomass is simply more
The conventional energy sources have expensive. Green technology does not
always been the most cost-effective way have the infrastructure that fossil fuels
to supply the large amount of electricity have developed over the years, making
needed for modern life. Producing the initial cost of building green power
electricity from renewable resources like facilities more expensive. Therefore,

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cost-effective energy conversion coal to meet the ever-challenging

technologies need to be developed. demand for electricity, especially during
Utility companies can easily stockpile peak demand hours.
made in monocrystalline and multicrystalline
Most renewable energy sources cannot be
Silicon (Si) wafers. These wafers are made of
stored to provide for future use; the amount of
high quality Si or what is called electronic
electricity produced depends on instantaneous
grade Si. The electronic grade Si is mainly
wind speed or solar illumination. Therefore, a
produced for the microelectronics industry.
mechanism is required for effective energy
Since the development of PV modules in
storage and efficient recovery. Fossil fuel
1975, the solar cell industry also started using
power plants can be placed almost anywhere,
it. The electronic grade Si manufacturers
as long as a railroad or pipeline can reach the
could supply Si to the solar cell industry as
site. In contrast, the areas, where green
per the requirement (Stephen Maldonado,
energy like wind and hydropower can be
2020). The Si is supplied from their surplus-
utilized, are limited. There is also resistance
capacity and from the Si waste produced at
to change caused by the magnitude of the
the different stages of Si wafer
investment in the existing energy
manufacturing. Because of the large growth
infrastructure, and the daunting cost of
in PV industry (over 30%) and relatively
creating a new one. Every aspect of our
smaller growth in the microelectronics
energy system has been optimized over the
industry (less than 10%), a time had come
past 100 years of industrial development to
when microelectronics industry was not able
suit the existing energy system. Energy assets
to supply enough Si to solar cell industry.
are typically capital intensive and have long
This started happening during 2004. From
lifetime.
2004 to 2020, the solar PV module prices
Research and Methodology: gradually increased (instead of decreasing
due to volume growth), due to shortage of Si.
Growth of solar PV industry and Si- The price index of solar PV modules for sizes
Requirement:
higher than 125Wp is shown in Figure 1
Solar PV industry has grown almost 1000 .
times its size since the time of inception. In
1975, the worldwide PV module production
was about 2 MWp, and it has grown to more
than 103 GWp in 2019. In the last 10 years,
the average growth of solar PV industry was
more than 30%. Most of this growth
happened because of the progress in Si
Figure 1: Solar PV global capacity
Wafer-based solar PV modules. As of today,
and annual additions, 2009-2019.
more than 90% of the solar PV modules are
Increase in solar PV module price in the

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period of Si shortage can clearly be noticed in Figure 2.

Figure 2: Average PV module price

(For 1W or higher sized module) Figure 3: P-N Junction illuminated by

solar radiation
ROLE OF PHOTOVOLTAICS IN
ENERGY SUPPLY

Sunlight can be converted to electricity

due to the photovoltaic effect discovered
in 1839 by Edmund Becquerel, a French
scientist. Sunlight is composed of
photons, or packets of energy. These
photons contain various amounts of
energy corresponding to the different
wavelengths of light. When photons Figure 4: Generation of electron hole
pair as
strike a solar cell, a semiconductor P-N
junction device, they may be reflected or a function of depth of solar cell
absorbed, or they may pass through the If a piece of p-type silicon is placed in
cell. Absorption of a photon in a solar intimate contact with a piece of n-type
cell results in the generation of electron- silicon, then a diffusion of electrons
hole pair (EHP) ( Nakamura et al., occurs from the region of high electron
2019). This EHP, when separated from concentration (the n-type side of the
each other across the P-N junction, junction) into the region of low electron
results in the generation of a voltage concentration (p-type side of the
across the junction, which can drive the junction)( Figure: 5).
current in an external circuit and,
therefore, power can be extracted from
the solar cell, also referred to as
photovoltaic (PV) device (Figure 3&4).

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Figure: 5.Generation rate of electron- depletion region because it no longer

hole
contains any mobile charge carriers.
pairs in a piece of silicon as a function
of
distance into the cell Result and Discussion:
When the electrons diffuse across the p-n Various losses in Solar cell:
junction, they recombine with holes on
A loss in solar cell refers to loss of
the p-type side. The diffusion of carriers
photon energy (partial or full) which,
does not happen indefinitely, however,
due to some reason, is not able to deliver
because charges build up on either side
an electron out of a solar cell (Carlson,
of the junction and create an electric
and Wronski, 1985). This loss could be
field. The electric field creates a diode
due to the fundamental reason (limited
that promotes charge flow, known as
by material properties) or it could be due
drift current that opposes and eventually
to the technological reason (limited by
balances out the diffusion of electrons
cell processing capabilities). There are
and holes (Augusto et al., 2017). This
several ways in which photon energy
region where electrons and holes have
loss could occur.
diffused across the junction is called the
Loss of low energy photons thermalization loss. For a single junction
solar cell, this is equal to about 33%.
The photons having energy less than the
Voltage loss
band gap energy do not get absorbed in
The voltage corresponding to the band
the material and therefore, do not
gap of a material is obtained by dividing
contribute to the generation of electron-
the band gap (potential energy) by
hole pairs. This is referred as
charge, i.e., Eg/q. This is referred as the
transmission loss, and is almost equal to
band gap voltage (Eisaman et al., 2011).
23% for a single junction solar cell
The actual voltage obtained from a solar
(Feneberg et al., 2010).
cell is Voc. This happens due to the
unavoidable intrinsic Auger
Loss due to excess energy of
photons recombination. The ratio of Voc/Eg/q
lies in the range of 0.65 to 0.72.
In an ideal case only, photon of energy Fill Factor loss
equal to the band gap energy is required
to excite an electron from valance band The I-V curve of ideal solar cell is
to conduction (Xie et al., 2013). When square (i.e., FILL FACTOR (FF) =1),
the photon energy E is higher than the but in reality, the cell I-V curve is given
band gap energy Eg, the excess by the exponential behavior. In the best
energy=E-Eg is given off as a heat to the case, the FF could be 0.89. This type of
material. This loss is referred as the

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loss arises from the parasitic resistance active material for cost reduction
(series and shunt resistance) of the cell. purpose. This type of loss can be
The above said four losses are the minimized by having appropriate light
fundamental losses which cannot be trapping schemes.
minimized beyond their basic limit. The
Loss due to metal coverage:
following are the technological losses,
which can be avoided by adopting
In wafer based solar cell, the contact to
special fabrication techniques. This
the front side of the cell (from where the
technological loss can be divided into
light enters) is made in the form of finger
optical and electrical losses. The optical
and bus bar. This metal contact shadows
loss is referred to as the loss of photons
some light which can be up to 10%.
which may result in the generation of
Several approaches have been adopted to
electron-hole pairs and the electrical loss
minimize this loss which include one-
is referred to as the loss of photons,
side contacted cell, buried solar cell of
which are absorbed in solar cell, but do
transparent contact as used in thin film
not contribute to the cell output power
solar cells (Gregory et al., 2020).
due to either recombination or ohmic
Recombination losses:
(resistance flow of electrons) losses
(Hages etal., 2016). The losses due to the
Not all the generated electron-hole pairs
technological reasons are as follows:
contribute to the solar cell current and
Loss by reflection: voltage due to recombination. The
recombination could occur in the bulk of
A part of incident photons is reflected
material or at the surfaces. This type of
from the cell surface. The reflection can
recombination can be minimized by
be minimized by using anti-reflecting
appropriate surface and bulk passivation
coating and surface texturing (Majid
techniques.
and Morteza 2018).
Deprecation of Optical Losses:
Loss due to incomplete absorption:
Solar cell is a P-N junction with metal
It refers to the loss of photons which contacts at both the sides, which is
have enough energy (i.e.,>Eg) to get supposed to absorb all solar radiation
absorbed in the solar cell, but do not get falling on it. Any loss of radiation will
absorbed in the cell due to limited solar result in less generation of electron-hole
cell thickness. The incomplete pair which will result in the reduction in
absorption is becoming important in the IL. The loss of solar radiation due to
current scenario as the thickness of the optical loss is referred to as the solar
cell is being reduced in order to save the radiation which falls on solar cell, but

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does not get absorbed due to some contact, ‘c’ absorption of radiation in the
reason (Dirk and Sarah, 2018). The loss solar cell and‘d’ transmission of
of radiation could be due to the radiation through the cell.
reflection from the solar cell surface, due
Anti–Reflective Coating (ARC)
to the transmission through solar cell or
due to the reflection from the metal
An ARC is a thin layer of a dielectric
contact as shown in Figure 6. The optical
material deposited on the surface of solar
loss could be as high as 40% to 50%.
cell. It should not absorb any light and
These optical losses should be
should reduce the reflection (bare Silica
minimized in order to get high IL. The
surface reflects about 30% of incident
optical losses can be reduced by the
light). The reduction in reflection is
following measures:providing anti –
based on destructive interference. In
reflection coating on the solar cell
order to obtain the condition of
surface, Reduce the reflection by surface
destructive interference, thickness d1 and
texturing over solar cell, Minimizing the
refractive index n1 of the ARC should be
front metal contact coverage area to
properly chosen. The thickness of the
reduce contact shading, and Making
dielectric ARC should be such that the
solar cell thicker to increase absorption
radiations reflected from the air-ARC
of low energy photons.
interface and from the ARC-
semiconductor interface have 180o phase
difference as shown in Figure 7. The out
of phase waves will have destructive
interference resulting in zero/smaller
reflected energy. This requires that for
the normal incidence, the thickness of
Figure: 6. possible interactions of solar
the ARC should be quarter of the
radiation falling on a solar cell
wavelength i.e
The above figure shows: ‘a’ reflection of
𝜆𝜆𝑜𝑜
radiation from front surface, ‘b’ 𝑑𝑑 =
4𝑛𝑛1
absorption or reflection by front metal

Where λo is the wavelength of radiation

in air and λo/n1 is the wavelength of
radiation in the dielectric medium of
refractive index n1.

Figure: 7. Anti-Reflective Coating

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Conclusions:
In the above figure, minimization of
reflection loses is achieved by depositing Solar energy can be regarded as the

Anti- Reflective Coating (ARC) of mainly viable energy source of the

thickness d1 and refractive index n1. expectations. Electricity generation by

solar technology seems to be very
Surface Texturing capable. Multi‐junction PV cells have
achieved noteworthy efficiencies. In
Surface texturing is another technique of addition to electricity generation, solar
reducing reflection. It is done by making energy also has a competence to fulfil
the surface rougher. Reflection is the energy needs of indispensable
reduced from a rough surface as it working sectors of society together with
increases the chances of reflected rays to agriculture, the automobile industry,
bounce back on the surface as food preparation industries, water
demonstrated in the. In this way, rays in treatment, etc. It has been sketchy that
the second interaction with the surface by 2032, energy production by solar
may get into the cell and overall technology will be talented to contend
reflection get reduced. With the surface cost-effectively with conventional
texturing alone, the weighted average energy sources. Likewise the
reflection of the Si surface can be environmentally friendly nature of solar
brought down to about 11%. Together energy makes it the decisive energy
with the surface texturing and ARC source for humanity. In general, the
deposition as shown in Figure: 8&9, the major findings of this study are abridged
overall reflection can be brought down to as follows: Electricity can be generated
within 3%. directly or obliquely from solar energy.
PV cells directly produce electric current
through a PV effect. The economics and
efficiency of a solar PV cell depend
mainly upon its material. PV cells are
more often than not grouped into three
Figure: 8: Surface Texturing
major generations: first‐, second‐, and
third‐generation PV cells where the first
generation is the most dominant type.
The efficiency of PV cells can be up to
just about 34% in the multifunction
Figure: 9. ARC with surface texturing
devices.

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