Abstract
Organic photovoltaics (OPV) has attracted tremendous attention as a
promising alternative to silicon wafer-based technologies for building
integration. While significant progress has been achieved on the power
conversion efficiency of OPV technologies, their field stability is
rarely studied. This work investigates the field performance and
reliability of a large-area OPV module designed for BIPV application in
the tropical region of Singapore for 4.5 years. The device suffered more
than 14% degradation in power at the standard testing conditions from
the initial performance, largely due to losses in fill factor (-12%
relative). During the monitoring period, it exhibited comparable
performance to more conventional silicon PV technologies, with an
average specific energy yield of about 4 kWh/kWp/day and an average
performance ratio of 0.96. Excellent performance at low light conditions
was also observed. However, its field performance was heavily impacted
by soiling, which typically led to a 5 to 10% loss in the current
output after several months. Further, the device’s outdoor performance
also showed a three-stage degradation process, including (1) an initial
slow degradation in the first two years (about -1%/year), (2) a stable
period with negligible performance loss from year 2 to year 3.5 and (3)
a rapid degradation in the last year (about -5%/year).