Effect of Reverse Bias Voltages on small scale gridded CIGS Solar Cells

Partial shading on photovoltaic modules can cause cells to operate at reverse bias conditions. An innovative experimental setup with two test protocols has been designed to simulate the effect of reverse bias voltage on small scale CIGS solar cells with a metal grid. In these tests, the effect on the performance of the solar cells exposed to either a stepwise increasing or prolonged constant negative bias voltage was studied. It was demonstrated that performance loss occurred mainly due to a reduction in shunt resistance. Moreover, some solar cells have partially recuperated after light soaking.