Improvement in multi-crystalline silicon solar cell efficiency via addition of luminescent material to EVA encapsulation layer

This paper shows that an enhancement in the performance of commercial screen-printed multi-crystalline silicon photovoltaic modules can be achieved via luminescent down-shifting of the incident light. Using fluorescent organic dyes dissolved in the pre-existing poly-ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA) encapsulation layer, an increase in the short-wavelength external quantum efficiency of over 10% absolute, which results in 0.18% absolute higher efficiency, is reported. This approach offers the opportunity for prompt application at production scale, since it neither requires any modification to the module manufacturing process nor does it add to the cost of power generation. © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.