Abstract
This study investigated the process of thermal-induced growth of micro-crack developed at the crystalline solar cell using EL image, determined the output characteristic according to the pattern of micro-crack, analyzed the I-V characteristic according to the pattern of crack growth, and predicted the output value using simulation. The purpose of this study was, therefore, to investigate the process of thermal-induced growth of micro-crack developed at the early stage of PV module completion using EL image, to analyze the resulting decrement of output and predict the output value using simulation. It was observed that the crack grew increasingly by the thermal condition, and accordingly the lowering of output was accelerated. The output values of crack patterns with various direction were predicted using simulation, resulting in close I-V curve with only around 4% of error rate. It is considered that it is possible to predict the electric characteristic of solar cell module using only pattern of micro-crack occurred at solar cell based on our results.
