EFG solar modules

Abstract

Six photovoltaic modules using solar cells fabricated from silicon ribbons were assembled and delivered to JPL. Each module was comprised of four separate submodules which were parallel connected. The submodules contained 45 EFG cells which were series interconnected by a shingle or overlapping design. The inherent rectangular shape of the cells allowed a high packing factor to be achieved. The average efficiency of the six modules, corrected to AM1 at 28 C was 8.7%, which indicates that the average encapsulated cell efficiency was 10.0%.