Holistic design improvement of the PV module frame: Mechanical, optoelectrical, cost, and life cycle analysis

We present a holistic approach for the photovoltaic (PV) module frame improvement that considers mechanical, electrical, economic, and ecological aspects for different frame designs. In a comprehensive study, the approach is applied to exemplary PV module frame designs. The analyses performed in this study show a potential improvement path of the module frame design. This leads to an overall better module performance and helps finding the balance point between technical performance, cost, and environmental impact. Based on the results, the PV module frame design affects the aspects analyzed in this work differently. For the comparison, we defined reference frame design with 16 and 20 mm front and rear frame widths. The improvement is reached by unitizing the frame width for both sides to 18 mm and increasing its cavity width to 12 mm instead of 8.5 mm. Tuning the frame parameters in this way leads to the best balance point for frame designs in this study regarding all aspects. The mechanical finite element method (FEM) simulation results show that even a small change on the frame width has a significant influence on the stress within the solar cells. Compared with the reference frame, the optimized frame design shows 2.6% less deflection, which corresponds to around 0.7 mm. Cell-to-module (CTM) analysis shows that a bigger frame width lightly decreases the cover coupling power gain. Results show that increasing the front frame width from 16 to 20 mm reduces the module power by about 0.12 WP. Findings of the cost of ownership (COO) analysis suggest that the optimized frame can save around 30 g aluminum which reduces the total module cost by 0.1%. Life cycle assessment (LCA) results are directly correlated to the material mass of the corresponding design. Results show that using the optimized frame can save 0.8 kg CO2-eq/kWP due to the saving in aluminum compared with the reference frame.