Title:	Effect of Degradation Factors on Solar Module Encapsulant Materials
Author(s):	H.H. Hsieh, S.H. Chen, W.L. Yang, C.C. Lai, M.T. Kuan, Y.C. Liu
Keywords:	Temperature Variation, Polymeric Encapsulant, Humidity Freeze Test
Topic:	Photovoltaic Modules and BoS Components
Subtopic:	Materials for PV Modules, Durability, Reliability and Accelerated Testing Methods
Event:	8th World Conference on Photovoltaic Energy Conversion
Session:	3DV.3.4
Pages:	890 - 892
ISBN:	3-936338-86-8
Paper DOI:	10.4229/WCPEC-82022-3DV.3.4
Price:	0,00 EUR
Document(s):	paper

Abstract/Summary:

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Solar encapsulant material is considered to be used in PV module for its high chemical stability and optical performance. And Ethylene Vinyl Acetate (EVA) has been widely used in c-Si solar module in the past decades. However, reviewing the literature, PV degradation concerning the encapsulant materials is around 25 %, which is higher than the other module components. To approach its performance and reliability, the accelerated aging tests such as UV exposure, humidity, and thermal variation. In this research, a cyclic UV exposure/Thermal cycling test/Humidity Freeze sequential aging test cited from IEC 61215 is proposed to observe the power degradation in each step. According to the test results, it is detected that most encapsulant materials can sustain four aging cycles with a power loss less than 5 %. To study the variation in power, it is noted that a higher power drop during humidity freeze test (generally > 0.5 %), while a slight recovery in UV exposure. Humidity freeze test is a testing condition of high temperature (85 ºC) and humidity (85 % RH), and the following UV test is an exposure chamber at 60 ºC. Thus, it is suggested that the key factors degrading EVA are humidity and temperature (Humidity freeze testing condition), yet UV exposure is supposed to evaporate the humidity from module.