Apparatus for Calibration of Photovoltaic Cells at National Institute of Standards

The Egyptian National Institute of Standards (NIS) has established and developed a system for calibrating reference solar cells using photodiode detectors traceable to the absolute cryogenic radiometer (ACR). This research discusses an experimental procedure for measuring spectral responsivity, external quantum efficiency, and internal quantum efficiency of reference solar cells from the range of 340 nm to 930 nm. The associated uncertainty budget is also estimated. Additionally, this paper shows the NIS's calibration facility for pyranometers at different irradiance levels (200 W/m², 800W/m², and 1000W/m²). The measurement of the spectral responsivity and quantum efficiency of reference solar cells using two techniques is converged with each other with an uncertainty of about ±1% (at 900 nm). Also, the sensitivity of the pyranometer at 800W/m² is 15.97µV/W/m² ±1.9%.