Issues with cell area definition in a thin-film pv module

[ravi.vasudevan]

Hello, I am trying to define a thin-film PV module that has a cell width of 7 mm and a length of 290 cm. However, when I get to the definition of the cell area I get some weird comments. Firstly I get this popup saying that the cell area has an invalid character because the software has put a '*' inside.

This does not allow me to leave the Sizes and Technology tab at all.

Then if I try to define the cell area as 203 cm^2, I get a pop-up saying that the "cell sizes determination is not applicable", and I do not understand what is meant with that.

Then if I try to define the cell width as 7 mm, the cell area is changed to '*100000000' again (not sure on the exact number of 0's) and I get the same popup again

However, if I leave the tab after defining the area as 203 cm^2 then even though I get this strange error, the cell efficiency is properly calculated and it seems to work fine but I don't understand why these errors are popping up.

[Bruno Wittmer]

Hi Ravi,

Up to PVsyst V7.3.1 one could only specify the total cell area. In V7.3.2 it became possible to introduce cell width and height. Together with this, there is a mechanism that automatically determines part of the dimensions, based on standard PV cell sizes. This only works for standard crystalline silicon cells, and gives these error messages if you use cell sizes that are not very common, like yours.

We will fix this for PVsyst V7.3.3, where it will be possible to freely choose the cell dimensions.