Publications by Antonin Faes | EPFL Graph Search

Enhancing lifetime, forecasting, and economic benefits of photovoltaic technologies undergoing UV-induced degradation with optical filtering

Christophe Ballif, Antonin Faes, Marion Solange Madeleine Dussouillez, Christian Michael Wolff

Ultraviolet-induced degradation (UV-ID) of various PV cell types was analyzed under optical UV filters with different cutoff wavelengths. Cell types studied included interdigitated back contact (IBC), passivated emitter and rear totally diffused (PERT), an ...

2025

An accurate bifacial PV module energy performance model using a direct-diffuse power rating model

Antonin Faes

Predicting the energy output of a bifacial photovoltaic (PV) module is usually not as straightforward as for a monofacial module. The problem usually lies in the estimation of the back-side irradiance which strongly depends on the mounting conditions, trac ...

ELSEVIER SCI LTD2025

Characterization of Lightweight Polymeric Honeycomb Structures for Use as Backsides in Glass‐Free PV Modules

Christophe Ballif, Antonin Faes, Umang Bhupatrai Desai

In densely populated or mountainous countries where installation of large‐scale solar plants is challenging, photovoltaic (PV) modules in building applications offer a solution by transforming passive surfaces into energy‐generating systems. The need for f ...

Wiley2025

Novel Mechanically Robust and Environmentally Stable Light‐Weight Colored Photovoltaic Modules Based on Composite Polymer Backsheets

Christophe Ballif, Antonin Faes, Umang Bhupatrai Desai

Reliable and esthetically pleasing lightweight photovoltaic modules for building integration are expected to grow interest in the consumer market, especially for retrofitting older buildings and storehouses that are not structurally designed to withstand a ...

Wiley2025

Stress tolerance of lightweight glass-free PV modules for vehicle integration

Christophe Ballif, Aïcha Hessler-Wyser, Antonin Faes, Jacques Levrat, Matthieu Despeisse, Gianluca Cattaneo, Fahradin Mujovi, Umang Bhupatrai Desai

Electric vehicles (EVs) currently dominate the sales in the automotive market. A big leap in this market can be made by developing a photovoltaic product that can be integrated to an EV, as it can boost the driving range of the EV while reducing the chargi ...

Edp Sciences S A2024

Novel Lightweight PV Modules Based on Polymeric Honeycomb for Building Integration

Christophe Ballif, Antonin Faes, Umang Bhupatrai Desai

A reliable and aesthetically pleasing lightweight (LW) photovoltaic (PV) module for building integration is expected to develop a growing interest in the consumer market. However, its application is still limited by old buildings that are not structurally ...

Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.2024

Colouring solutions for building integrated photovoltaic modules: A review

Christophe Ballif, Aïcha Hessler-Wyser, Antonin Faes, Alejandro Borja Block, Umang Bhupatrai Desai

The conflict between PV installations and other land uses, such as forestry or agriculture, highlights the urgency for alternative solutions. Integrating PV technology into the built environment is a compelling strategy to mitigate these challenges, enabli ...

2024

Overview of key results achieved in H2020 HighLite project helping to raise the EU PV industries' competitiveness

Antonin Faes, Gizem Nogay, Hugo James André Quest, Giuseppe Galbiati, Ning Chen

The EU crystalline silicon (c-Si) PV manufacturing industry has faced strong foreign competition in the last decade. To strive in this competitive environment and differentiate itself from the competition, the EU c-Si PV manufacturing industry needs to (1) ...

WILEY2023

Stability of black interconnect coatings for solar photovoltaic module applications

Christophe Ballif, Antonin Faes, Martin Ledinsky, Alessandro Francesco Aldo Virtuani, Alejandro Borja Block

Building-integrated photovoltaics (BIPV) are dual purpose, providing both energy and building functions. Aesthetics play a crucial role in the BIPV market, with increasing demand for uniformly colored modules for building skins. Achieving this requires hid ...

2023

Accurate color characterization of solar photovoltaic modules for building integration

Christophe Ballif, Antonin Faes, Jordi Escarre Palou, Alessandro Francesco Aldo Virtuani, Alejandro Borja Block

Accurate and reproducible color characterization is essential for colored building integrated photovoltaic products, both for manufacturing quality control and assessing long-term color stability. However, existing characterization techniques struggle to a ...

Pergamon-Elsevier Science Ltd2023

Monolithic Perovskite-Silicon Tandem Solar Cells: From the Lab to Fab?

Christophe Ballif, Antonin Faes, Quentin Thomas Jeangros, Chien-Jen Yang, Fan Fu

This review focuses on monolithic 2-terminal perovskite-silicon tandem solar cells and discusses key scientific and technological challenges to address in view of an industrial implementation of this technology. The authors start by examining the different ...

Wiley-V C H Verlag Gmbh2022

A comparative performance analysis of stand-alone, off-grid solar-powered sodium hypochlorite generators

Antonin Faes, Demetri Psaltis, Laurent Coulot, Christophe Moser, Miguel Antonio Modestino, Enrico Chinello

Sodium hypochlorite (NaClO) is a chemical commodity widely employed as a disinfection agent in water treatment applications. Its production commonly follows electrochemical routes in an undivided reactor. Powering the process with photovoltaic (PV) electri ...

2019

Quantifying and modeling the impact of interconnection failures on the electrical performance of crystalline silicon photovoltaic modules

Christophe Ballif, Fanny Sculati-Meillaud, Antonin Faes, Jacques Levrat, Matthieu Despeisse, Eleonora Annigoni, Alessandro Francesco Aldo Virtuani

Failures in the metallic interconnections are among the main degradation modes for photovoltaic modules. Fatigue accumulation due to thermomechanical stresses can result in deterioration of the solder joints or in broken ribbons. In this paper, we first qu ...

2019

Low-Temperature Screen-Printed Metallization for the Scale-Up of Two-Terminal Perovskite-Silicon Tandems

Christophe Ballif, Nicolas Badel, Antonin Faes, Jacques Levrat, Laura Ding, Sylvain Nicolay, Gabriel Christmann, Soo-Jin Moon, Arnaud Walter, Adriana Paracchino, Matthieu Despeisse, Bertrand Yves Paul Paviet-Salomon

Tandem photovoltaic devices based on perovskite and crystalline silicon (PK/c-Si) absorbers have the potential to push commercial silicon single junction devices beyond their current efficiency limit. However, their scale-up to industrially relevant sizes ...

AMER CHEMICAL SOC2019

Field test and electrode optimization of electrodynamic cleaning systems for solar panels

Christophe Ballif, Aïcha Hessler-Wyser, Nicolas Badel, Antonin Faes, Jacques Levrat, Nicolas Würsch, Matthieu Despeisse

Soiling is the major cause of power loss of photovoltaics (PV) and concentrated solar power (CSP) in desert areas. Electrodynamic cleaning system (EDS) is an automatic and water-free integrated cleaning system for mirrors or solar panels, which uses pulsed ...

WILEY2019

Quantifying and Modeling the Impact of Interconnection Failures on the Electrical Performance of Crystalline Silicon Photovoltaic Modules

Christophe Ballif, Antonin Faes, Jacques Levrat, Matthieu Despeisse, Eleonora Annigoni, Alessandro Francesco Aldo Virtuani

We present an electrical model developed with LT SPICE that simulates the performance of a string of cells with disconnections in the electrical circuit. In a previous contribution, we quantified experimentally how the module performance is affected when o ...

IEEE2018

Interdigitated back contact silicon heterojunction solar cells featuring an interband tunnel junction enabling simplified processing

Christophe Ballif, Antoine Descoeudres, Nicolas Badel, Benjamin Strahm, Antonin Faes, Sylvain Nicolay, Quentin Thomas Jeangros, Gabriel Christmann, Stefaan De Wolf, Matthieu Despeisse, Loris Barraud, Jonas Geissbühler, Johannes Peter Seif, Andrea Tomasi, Bertrand Yves Paul Paviet-Salomon

This paper reports on the development of an innovative back-contacted crystalline silicon solar cell with passivating contacts featuring an interband tunnel junction at its electron-collecting contacts. In this novel architecture, named "tunnel-IBC", both ...

2018

Solar-to-Hydrogen Production at 14.2% Efficiency with Silicon Photovoltaics and Earth-Abundant Electrocatalysts

Christophe Ballif, Antonio Delfino, Antonin Faes, Demetri Psaltis, David Lambelet, Matthieu Despeisse, Christophe Moser, Jan-Willem Alexander Schüttauf, Julien Claude Bailat, Miguel Antonio Modestino, Enrico Chinello

Affordable, stable and earth-abundant photo-electrochemical materials are indispensable for the large-scale implementation of sunlight-driven hydrogen production. Here we present an intrinsically stable and scalable solar water splitting device that is ful ...

Electrochemical Society2016

Realization of GaInP/Si Dual-Junction Solar Cells With 29.8% 1-Sun Efficiency

Christophe Ballif, Antoine Descoeudres, Nicolas Badel, Antonin Faes, Jacques Levrat, Matthieu Despeisse, Loris Barraud, Bertrand Yves Paul Paviet-Salomon, Stephanie Essig

Combining a Si solar cell with a high-bandgap top cell reduces the thermalization losses in the short wavelength and enables theoretical 1-sun efficiencies far over 30%. We have investigated the fabrication and optimization of Si-based tandem solar cells w ...

Ieee-Inst Electrical Electronics Engineers Inc2016

Silicon Heterojunction Solar Cells With Copper-Plated Grid Electrodes: Status and Comparison With Silver Thick-Film Techniques

Christophe Ballif, Antoine Descoeudres, Nicolas Badel, Antonin Faes, Quentin Thomas Jeangros, Stefaan De Wolf, Matthieu Despeisse, Loris Barraud, Jonas Geissbühler, Andrea Tomasi

Copper electroplating is investigated and compared with common silver printing techniques for the front metallization of silicon heterojunction solar cells. We achieve smaller feature sizes by electroplating, significantly reducing optical shadowing losses ...

Ieee-Inst Electrical Electronics Engineers Inc2014