Recovery of potential-induced degraded p-type multicrystalline Si PV modules by application of a reverse DC bias

Abstract Potential-induced degradation (PID) of photovoltaic (PV) modules based on p-type crystalline Si occurs in large-scale PV systems. The development of a low-cost PID recovery technique is important to maximize the power generation capacity of PID-affected facilities. In this paper, we study a simple PID recovery method for multicrystalline silicon solar cells. PID recovery was conducted by application of a reverse DC-bias voltage to the p-n junction of solar cells in PV modules, without temperature control devices. By using this method, the conversion efficiency of solar cells reduced to approximately 20% of their initial value via a PID test was recovered up to 92%. Additionally, nonuniform temperature increases of PV modules by leakage current were observed during the voltage application.