What Are Solar Module Microcracks: Microcracks Video Series Part 1
What are solar module microcracks? Clean Energy Associate's VP of Technology Paul Wormser gives a brief overview of microcracks and how they can affect solar modules and solar projects after they're installed.
Video Transcript:
Solar modules are made from two very different technology platforms. One of them is generally called crystalline silicon, and the other one is called thin film. Most of what the world buys and installs today is crystalline, and thus, that will be the focus of this blog series.
All solar cells that go into crystalline modules are made from very thin slices of crystalline silicon, hence the name, crystalline silicon modules, and these slices start off as wafers.
Wafers are used to make solar cells, but wafers are also used to make all kinds of chip devices. All of the devices that run your computer, for example, are made essentially from chips, from wafers. These wafers are brittle, and as a result, either during manufacturing there can be damage, or after manufacturing there can be damage. It could start out as a very, very small crack. And this is what we call a microcrack.
So microcracks are really cracks in the silicon structure that is in the wafer, from which the solar cell is made, from which the modules are made. So, you start with the module, and you get into lots of cells, and each of those cells really is a process around a wafer. And the microcrack is in the wafer itself.
Watch Part 2, The Four Causes of Solar Module Microcracks, here.