Performance and Thermal Analysis of Organic Photovoltaic Modules in Outdoor Conditions

Organic photovoltaic (OPV) modules are an emerging, innovative and low-cost solution to convert sunlight into electricity. Their flexibility and semi-transparency make OPV modules a suitable solution even in applications that cannot be based on traditional photovoltaic (PV) technologies. However, high ageing rate, short lifetime and low efficiency have limited their diffusion. This paper presents two outdoor test campaigns designed to assess and to compare with traditional silicon-based PV technologies the power output of OPV modules operating in real environmental conditions. OPV modules, as well as silicon-based PV modules, were operated at their maximum power point for several days: data collected demonstrated that OPV power output is slightly enhanced by the cells temperature at low irradiance, while at high irradiance the temperature coefficient of power is close to zero. Unlike silicon-based PV technologies, quite constant maximum power point voltage regardless the OPV cells temperature justifies the latter result.