Low Light Performance of Mono-Crystalline Silicon Solar Cells

This paper reports on low light performance results of solar cells manufactured by SunPower Corporation. We have investigated the effect of shunt resistance on low light performance of solar cells. We present I-V curves and measured cell efficiencies over irradiance levels from 1 to 0.001 Suns at AM1.5g spectrum, standard test conditions. A comparison with a theoretical model including the effect of shunt resistance and diode ideality factor is presented. We have also investigated the power density generated by our standard A-300 cells at various low light conditions. We infer from the results the possibility to use SunPower solar cells for PV powered products for low light applications.