Advanced Modelling of Silicon Solar Cells

Accurate physical modelling to assist and support research and development is of increasing importance for scientific institutions and for industry. Modelling is required for many different tasks, starting from fundamental questions concerning the basic working principles of photovoltaics, up to predicting the performance of a PV system. For these tasks many different approaches and methods are available. This paper gives an overview of the recent activities at the Solar Energy Research Institute of Singapore (SERIS) in this field. We discuss four different examples, related to four different techniques: Circuit modelling of series resistance losses in PV modules, device modelling of wafer solar cells to investigate passivation mechanisms, and optical modelling of scattering and periodic structures for thin-film silicon solar cells.