Electrothermal Modeling of Solar Cells and Modules

Dear Colleagues,

The Topic Editors are inviting submissions for a Topic on the subject area of “Electrothermal Modeling of Solar Cells and Modules”.

Solar modules are subject to considerable time variation of the temperature depending upon season, hour of the day, presence of clouds, wind speed, and nonuniform temperature distributions dictated by dirt, partial architectural shading, malfunctioning events, which in severe cases might also turn into hot-spots. High temperatures affect power production, while hot-spots are likely to entail reliability reduction (i.e., early aging) and even irreversible failures. It is therefore clear that an accurate electrothermal modeling of the solar module can be of paramount importance for the photovoltaic community, since it can (i) help to provide an in-depth understanding of the temperature influence on the behavior of the individual cells and the entire module and (ii) support the interpretation of IR maps (e.g., taken by low-flying drones), both aspects being poorly covered by the literature.

Papers suited to this Topic should be focused on:

• analysis of the 3-D heat propagation within the cell and/or the module;
• description and interpretation of the electrothermal (i.e., power-temperature) feedback;
• impact on the temperature field of position (latitude and longitude), tilt angle, day, hour of the day, and boundary conditions (including both radiative and convective mechanisms);
• efficient approaches to deal with the thermal and the electrical problems, as well as with the coupling between them;
• techniques relying on a calibrated electrothermal model for the interpretation of experimental temperature maps.

Prof. Dr. Vincenzo d'Alessandro
Prof. Dr. Pierluigi Guerriero
Topic Editors