Photovoltaic (PV) panels use silicon solar panels to convert the sun’s radiation to electrical energy. PV cells can be installed according to electricity needs and can power small devices like calculators and watches to a whole residential power requirement.
There are also two kinds of photovoltaic panels: crystalline silicon (c-Si) modules and thin film modules.
C-Si modules
Majority of PV modules are based on crystalline silicon due to abundant resources. There are two main forms of c-Si: single-c-Si module and mc-Si or multi-crystalline silicon module. Commercial sc-Si converts electricity better than mc-Si while the latter is less expensive than single crystalline silicon modules.
Thin film modules
Thin film PV modules are made by depositing extremely thin layers of photosensitive materials in glass, plastic, or stainless steel backing. The first thin film produce is a-Si or amorphous silicon. It offers several advantages including low consumption of raw materials, high production and automation efficiency, better performance in high ambient temperature, simple assembly and manufacturing integration, and more resistant to overheating. On the other hand, thin film modules have lower efficiency than crystalline silicon modules and the industry is yet to develop modules with long-term reliability.
Underway research is the integration of single-crystalline and amorphous PV cells. The study aims to better the efficiency of thin film modules in the following years.
Photovoltaic technology is a reliable source of electricity to residential and commercial users due to the effective supporting policies and remarkable cost reduction. Emerging technology include concentrating photovoltaic and organic solar cells. Concentrating PV utilizes an optical concentrator system that focuses sunlight into a small efficiency cell. It is currently ongoing test stages on pilot applications.
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