Master thesis: Improvement accuracy of outdoor angular measurements for PV modules and developing/optimising Debonding-on-Demand for PV modules using illumination

Although imec is mostly known for its research on micro-electronics, imec also has a strong position in research on photovoltaics (PV, solar cells and modules). This started more than 30 years ago with research on silicon solar cells. In the meantime, the focus has been shifted towards subjects like PV based on perovskites (also combined with silicon bottom cells into tandem devices), special modules for integration into buildings (BIPV), farming (Agri-PV) or vehicles (VIPV). There is also a computational group working on accurate energy yield modelling for different types of PV installations at any location, including setups with bifacial modules and with the possibility to include solar tracking as well.

In 2022, two UHasselt students have been working on the special dual-axis solar tracking system that has been constructed to measure the angular dependence PV modules. It uses comparison to a small reference device with calibrated angular response, which was done in a tube that has also been made within the project.

Outdoor advantages are the good uniformity of the sunlight, the spectrum that is very close to the standard one, and the almost parallel solar light beam (deviation rays within +/- 0.25°). Indoor measurements are weather-independent, but are doing worse on all of the 3 aspects just mentioned. On June 1^st, a 3-year project will start that aims at an optimal accuracy for the determination of angular dependence of light sensors. In addition to an optimal accuracy, it is also necessary to estimate how large the remaining errors will be. For the optimisation, a new angular sensor will need to be installed (amongst others), and the current automatic Python software for data analysis (made by the students) could be adapted to analyse the angular behaviour also for negative angles, which is important for error analysis.

The other subject (indoor) is to optimise the so-called “debonding-on-demand” of PV modules with adapted encapsulant. The goal of debonding by a trigger is to simplify the future recycling of PV modules at end of life by an easy and fast separation of the module layers (like the glass). This will be done using IR (or UV) lamps for small modules (20 cm x 20 cm), and the goal is to obtain clean surfaces and a fast debonding. This will need to be investigated for glass-backsheet, glass-glass and full polymer PV modules. This work is independent of the weather, so can be done when the weather is not OK bad for tracker experiments.

If you are interested to work on these subjects, we would be happy to hear from you.