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As silicon solar cells are getting close to their fundamental efficiency limit of 29.4%, perovskite/silicon tandem solar cells are the most promising candidate for a technology with higher efficiency potential. It is project to enter mass production within two years. Many companies looking to introduce perovskite/silicon tandems aim for an application in the residential rooftop market. For a successful market entry, this technology does not just need to demonstrate high efficiencies under Standard Testing Conditions (STC: 25°C, 1 kW/m², AM1.5g), but also high energy yields in different climates to be bankable to investors.
However, the classical energy yield prediction tools (PVSyst, SAM, etc.) currently do not cover tandem devices. The research community has done several yield prediction studies for perovskite/silicon tandems. However, these studies are done with plane of array irradiance models, which assign homogenous irradiation to the whole module and cannot solve the irradiation situation in complex geometries typically surrounding modules on residential roofs tops with objects like chimneys and trees leading to partial shading.
In this work, we introduce a new comprehensive model called “PVMD Toolbox”, which can simulate tandem PV systems as well as integrated PV Systems (IPV) in complex shading scenarios such as residential buildings. We combine wave optics-based generation profiles and a semiconductor software to simulate the optoelectrical properties of the tandem device. On a system level, we use ray tracing to determine irradiance and photon flux onto every solar cell in the PV system. Based on this we determine the temperature and IV curve of each solar cell for every hour of the year, which are then used in a lumped element model to calculate the yield of each module and factoring the inverter the AC yield is determined for two tandem systems in four different climates.
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