The Influence of UV Light Exposure on the Reliability of Various Front Materials for Lightweight PV Module

Abstract

The need for innovative design and materials is increasing for various types of photovoltaic (PV) installations in building integrated PV, agricultural, and floating systems. It is crucial to reduce the weight of the PV module to maximize its use in such applications. For this purpose, the front surface must be made of a polymer-based material instead of tempered glass. This study focuses on the analysis of the optical and ultraviolet (UV) reliability properties of various lightweight polymer front sheets. The results show that the transmittance and UV properties of the front material are good. Moreover, a PV module with a polymer front sheet rather than glass was constructed, and a characteristic investigation as well as UV reliability test were performed. The transmittance of the polycarbonate (PC) front sheet decreased by only <3% and the module fabricated with PC exhibited only an approximately 6% power drop after the UV reliability test; hence, the PC is suitable for use in the PV module industry.