Reliability, Degradation and Performance Optimization in Photovoltaic Cells, Modules and Systems

Dear Colleagues,

Photovoltaic solar technology has reached a high level of technological maturity and large-scale deployment, becoming one of the key pillars of the global energy transition. Nevertheless, several critical challenges remain unresolved, particularly concerning long-term degradation mechanisms, fault diagnosis, and the real operating behavior of photovoltaic cells, modules, and systems under diverse environmental and electrical conditions. Addressing these issues is essential to ensure reliability, efficiency, and sustainability over the entire lifetime of photovoltaic installations.

This Special Issue aims to collect recent advances that contribute to a deeper understanding of photovoltaic device physics, degradation phenomena, and failure mechanisms, as well as innovative methods for their early detection and mitigation. Contributions focusing on advanced photovoltaic cell technologies, novel module architectures, bifacial and multi-terminal configurations, and unconventional interconnection schemes are especially encouraged.

In addition, this Special Issue welcomes works related to power electronics for photovoltaic systems, including module- and sub-module-level optimization, DC/DC conversion, maximum power point tracking strategies, and advanced control and monitoring techniques. These approaches play a fundamental role in enhancing energy yield, improving mismatch tolerance, and increasing system robustness under partial shading, aging, and fault conditions.

Overall, the goal of this Special Issue is to provide a comprehensive overview of emerging technologies and methodologies that improve the performance, reliability, and sustainability of next-generation photovoltaic systems, bridging the gap between device-level innovation and system-level implementation.

Thank you in advance for your contributions.

Dr. Michel Piliougine
Guest Editor

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