ABSTRACT The unprecedented growth of satellite constellations in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) triggers a need for cost efficient solar generators able to meet a larger demand. High interconnection reliability is one of the requirements for LEO application where systems are exposed to up to large amplitude thermal cycles per year. Standard terrestrial cell to wire/ribbon interconnections are not reliable enough. In the present work, we report the electrical performance of strings of 90‐m‐thick heterojunction (HJT) and 160‐m‐thick passivated emitter and rear cell (PERC) cells exposed to thermal cycles with an amplitude of 120°C/120°C based on IV curve measures at room and higher temperature along with electroluminescence and lock in thermography imaging. Shingle strings were fabricated with two different electrically conductive adhesives (ECA) for their tile‐to‐tile interconnection (TTI) and another for the interconnection‐piece‐to‐tile interconnection (IPTI) prior to their encapsulation. All string materials and processes are based on the terrestrial photovoltaic (PV) industry. The results highlight the existence of interconnection instabilities, which can cause power losses underestimations. Nevertheless, all strings withstand thermal cycles and some thermal cycles with a maximum power loss of . The best strings present no sign of TTI degradation after thermal cycles. These results unveil the great potential of shingle for LEO applications.
Charpentier et al. (Mon,) studied this question.