A comprehensive degradation assessment of silicon photovoltaic modules installed on a concrete base under hot and low-humidity environments: Building applications

Some geographical locations have low humidity, thus the impact of damp-heat (DH) stress under low humidity is crucial. Therefore, the alterations in the performance parameters (PMs) are investigated under a low RH (40%) to evaluate photovoltaic (PV) degradation in low humidity regions for 3200 h. These PMs are administrated by five PV cell parameters, and thus, the PV cell parameters are also altered over time. Consequently, determining the change in PV cell parameters over time can help to predict the performance losses occurring in the PV devices. A nearly 1.9% loss in efficiency was recorded for the PV module installed on a concrete base (CON PVM), which is 5.6% lower than the degradation in the reference PV (WO PVM) module. The I_sc values of the WO and CON PVMs were found to be 105.3% and 99.8% of their corresponding initial values, respectively. Nevertheless, the series resistance of the WO and CON modules increased by ~60% and ~43%, respectively. The results demonstrate that PV modules can perform better after installation on concrete in low humidity regions. This strategy can be very efficient to increase the lifetime of the PV modules in a low humid environment.