A Comprehensive Review of Solar Photovoltaic (PV) Technologies, Architecture, and Its Applications to Improved Efficiency

Since the discovery of Photovoltaic (PV) effect, numerous ways of utilizing the energy that can be generated by the free everlasting solar radiation using solar panels were put forward by many researchers. However, the major disadvantage of solar panel to date is its low efficiency, which is affected by the panel temperature, cell type, panel orientation, irradiance level, etc. Though there are certain multi-junction solar panels that offer higher efficiencies, their application is very minimal due to high manufacturing cost. With the growing demand for the reduction of carbon footprint, there is a need to use and manufacture these panels in the most effective way to harness the maximum power and increase their efficiency. Another major concern is the availability of land/space for the installation of these panels. Several authors have focused on discussing the different technologies that have evolved in the manufacturing of the PV cells along with their architectures. However, there exists a gap that needs to be addressed by combining the latest PV technologies and architectures with a focus on PV applications for increasing the efficiency. Due to the technical limitations on the efficiency of PV panels, applications are to be designed that can extract the maximum power from the PV systems by minimizing the technical difficulties. Considering all these factors, this paper presents an overview of the types of silicon based solar cell architectures with efficiencies of at least 25%, and different integration methods like Building integrated PVs (BIPV), floating PVs, which can increase the efficiency by harnessing more power from a limited space. An extensive bibliography on the PV cell structures and methods of maintaining the efficiencies in real world installations are presented. The challenges with the integration of solar panels and the future work are also discussed. This work benefits the readers and researchers and serves as a basis to understand the solar panel efficiency structure and ways to improve the efficiency and associated challenges to come over in the successful implementation of these systems.