We report the use of roll-to-roll printed silver nanowire networks as front electrodes for fully roll-to-roll processed flexible indium-tin-oxide (ITO) free OPV modules. We prepared devices with two types of back electrodes, a simple PEDOT:PSS back electrode and a PEDOT:PSS back electrode with a printed silver grid in order to simultaneously explore the influence of the back electrode structure on the operational stability of the modules that did not include any UV-protection. We subjected the devices to stability testing under a number of protocols recommended by the international summit on OPV stability (ISOS). We explored accelerated ISOS-D-2, ISOS-D-3, ISOS-L-2, ISOS-L-3, ISOS-O-1 and ISOS-O-2 testing protocols and compared the performance to previous reports employing the same testing protocols on devices with PEDOT:PSS instead of the silver nanowires in the front electrode. We find significantly increased operational stability across all ISOS testing protocols over the course of the study and conclude that replacement of PEDOT:PSS in the front electrode with silver nanowires increase operational stability by up to 1000%. The duration of the tests were in the range of 140–360 days. The comparison of front and back electrode stability in this study shows that the modules with silver nanowire front electrodes together with a composite back electrode comprising PEDOT:PSS and a silver grid present the best operational stability.

Electroluminescence (EL) imaging is a photovoltaic (PV) module characterization technique, which provides high accuracy in detecting defects and faults, such as cracks, broken cells interconnections, shunts, among many others; furthermore, the EL technique is used extensively due to a high level of detail and direct relationship to injected carrier density. However, this technique is commonly practiced only indoors—or outdoors from dusk to dawn—because the crystalline silicon luminescence signal is several orders of magnitude lower than sunlight. This limits the potential of such a powerful technique to be used in utility scale inspections, and therefore, the interest in the development of electrical biasing tools to make outdoor EL imaging truly fast and efficient. With the focus of quickly acquiring EL images in daylight, we present in this article a drone-based system capable of acquiring EL images at a frame rate of 120 frames per second. In a single second during high irradiance conditions, this system can capture enough EL and background image pairs to create an EL PV module image that has sufficient diagnostic information to identify faults associated with power loss. The final EL images shown in this work reached representative quality ${rm{SNR_{AVG}}$ of 4.6, obtained with algorithms developed in previous works. These drone-based EL images were acquired with global horizontal solar irradiance close to one sun in the plane of the array.

The fabrication of substrates and superstrates prepared by scalable roll‐to‐roll methods is reviewed. The substrates and superstrates that act as the flexible carrier for the processing of functional organic electronic devices are an essential component, and proposals are made about how the general availability of various forms of these materials is needed to accelerate the development of the field of organic electronics. The initial development of the replacement of indium‐tin‐oxide (ITO) for the flexible carrier materials is described and a description of how roll‐to‐roll processing development led to simplification from an initially complex make‐up to higher performing materials through a more simple process is also presented. This process intensification through process simplification is viewed as a central strategy for upscaling, increasing throughput, performance, and cost reduction.

This review summarizes the recent progress in the stability and lifetime of organic photovoltaics (OPVs). In particular, recently proposed solutions to failure mechanisms in different layers of the device stack are discussed comprising both structural and chemical modifications. Upscaling is additionally discussed from the perspective of stability presenting the challenges associated with device packaging and edge protection. An important part of device stability studies is the characterization, and this review provides a short overview of the most advanced techniques for stability characterization reported recently. Lifetime testing and determination is another challenge in the field of organic solar cells and the final sections of this review discuss the testing protocols as well as the generic marker for device lifetime and the methodology for comparing all the lifetime landmarks in one common diagram. These tools were used to determine the baselines for OPV lifetime tested under different ageing conditions. Finally, the current status of lifetime for organic solar cells is presented and predictions are made for progress in the near future.