Closing the Cell to Module Stability Testing Gap

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This project targets the development of infrastructure to enable outdoor field testing for pre-commercial solar cell technologies. Nascent photovoltaics, such as perovskite solar cells, still have difficulty entering the market due to questions regarding reliability and environmental durability. While outdoor testing can provide valuable information, these tests are often conducted on laboratory demonstration modules with sub-optimal packaging. The lack of consistent packaging and module performance hinders the ability to separately assess the cell and package stability and makes it difficult to ascertain where failures originate. This project targets this problem through the development of a template module package for perovskite solar cells and building out of outdoor testing facilities and equipment. These capabilities will bridge lab scale experiments to module level questions addressing both packaging along with environmental impact to cells. This work will enable real world outdoor test required to de-risk perovskites and other innovations in photovoltaic modules.