Simulation study of light-induced, current-induced degradation and recovery on PERC solar cells

The way to permanently recover the well-known Light-Induced Degradation (LID) which affects the p-type Cz-Si PERC solar cells represents one of the main challenges of photovoltaic research. In this work we have set up a numerical simulations flow which allows us to reproduce the experimental measured values of figures of merit (FOMs) of four different Cz-PERC solar cells lots subjected to a degradation and two regeneration processes. The recombination centres in bulk and the Boron-Oxygen complexes (B-O) are modeled by means of two trap levels tuned on the basis of experimental data. From simulations we confirm that the FOM degradation levels off after 16 hours and the regeneration process characterized by relatively long time process is preferred in terms of performance recovery. In addition, further cells with different passivation films are analyzed by adopting the same methodology. (C) 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.