Driving Sustainable Growth: Leveraging Digital Transformation in Photovoltaic Manufacturing

The performance of photovoltaic modules in the field plays a crucial role in ensuring reliability, quality, and financing for photovoltaic installations. Recent years have witnessed exponential growth in the solar photovoltaic industry, potentially driven by the principles of Industry 5.0. In this digital transformation era, companies can enhance production efficiency, mitigate environmental impact, and transition towards a more sustainable and profitable manufacturing model. Therefore, it is imperative to examine the stress conditions encountered by photovoltaic modules during the manufacturing process, as they are a major contributing factor to field failures. The objective of the article is to prolong the lifespan of photovoltaic panels by addressing various stages of their manufacturing, aiming to identify enhancements that will result in prolonged durability. This extension is closely linked to the performance of photovoltaic modules where the article finds solutions such as a modification on the rigidity of the encapsulant to reduce stresses, cooling in different ways to reduce temperature or change the angle of inclination to avoid dust accumulation. Additionally, this phase presents an opportune moment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, further aligning the process with sustainability goals. Furthermore, the article analyzes the advantages and disadvantages of different photovoltaic cell technologies. While the current market is dominated by c-Si technology, significant increases are expected in the adoption of other technologies highlighting the use of bifacial cells in the coming years.