Impact of average photon energy on spectral gain and loss of various-type PV technologies at different locations

Spectral grain and loss (spectral gain&loss) of several-type PV technologies (amorphous silicon (a-Si), perovskite (perov), CdTe, CuInSe2 (CIS), multi-crystalline silicon (mc-Si), single-crystalline silicon back-contact (BC), single-crystalline silicon (sc-Si), and heterostructure-with-intrinsic-thin-layer (HIT)) was investigated in different places (Kusatsu city, Tsukuba city, and Miyazaki city in Japan) in a year. Spectral gain&loss is defined as a ratio of short-circuit current (I-SC) corrected by solar irradiance (Irr) for PV module at an average photon energy (APE) to its I-SC under standard test condition. The blue-rich spectra with APE over 1.88 eV yield spectral gain (spectral gain&loss over 1) for CdTe, perov, and a-Si PV technologies owing to large band-gap energy (E-g) values of 1.47, 1.60, and 1.80 eV, respectively. On the other hand, red-rich spectra with APE below 1.88 eV lead to spectral gain for CIS, me-Si, BC, sc-Si, and HIT PV technologies with smaller E-g values of 1.21, 1.13, 1.17, 1.16, and 1.09 eV, respectively. Moreover, since average APE values in Kusatsu city, Tsukuba city, and Miyazaki city are 1.931, 1.900, and 1.899 eV, respectively, a-Si, perov, and CdTe PV technologies are suitable in term of spectral response. The spectral gain&loss of PV modules compared with sc-Si PV module is moreover discussed. (C) 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.