A distributed emitter model for solar cells: Extracting a temperature dependent lumped series resistance

The solar cell operating temperature can significantly affect the intrinsic solar cell performance, as well as the resistivity of the emitter and grid electrodes. The grid electrode spacing is optimized to reduce the power loss caused by shadowing and lateral current flow. These optimizations are often based on measurements and calculations performed at the standard temperature 25°C. However, over a range of possible operating temperatures, 25°C to 100°C, the emitter resistivity can more than double and the metal resistivity can go up by 60%. If the temperature dependent sheet resistance is not included in the simulations, the conversion efficiency of the solar cell can be over estimated by 0.4 percentage points.