A study of shading and resistive loss from the fingers of encapsulated solar cells

Optimised solar cell design is dependent on the assumed shading and resistance losses associated with front contacts. In this study, a spectrophotometer with integrating sphere attachment was used to measure the reflection from the front surface of encapsulated silver electroplated front contact solar cells. The results obtained are in good agreement with a previous study by one of the authors using a different method. The measured effective shading loss is about one third of the coverage fraction of the cell grid because of trapping of light reflected from the grid. The grid loss in 4 × 5 cm silver electroplated front contact solar cells was found to be similar to the predicted loss from buried grid and rear point contact solar cells operating at 30 suns concentration.