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8th World Conference on Photovoltaic Energy Conversion; 1105-1111, Technical risks are important criteria to consider when investing in new and existing PV installations. Quantitative knowledge of these risks is one of the key factors for the different stakeholders, such as asset managers, banks or project developers, to make reliable business decisions before and during the operation of their PV assets. Within the IEA PVPS Task 13 Expert Group, we aim to increase the knowledge on methodologies to assess technical risks and mitigation measures in terms of economic impact and effectiveness. The developed outline provides a reproducible and transparent technique to manage the complexity of risk analysis and processing in order to establish a common practice for professional risk assessment. Semi-quantitative and quantitative methodologies are introduced to assess technical risks in PV power systems and provide examples of common technical risks described and rated in the new created PV failure fact sheets (PVFS). Besides the PVFS based on expert knowledge and expert opinion, an update on the statistics of the PV failure degradation survey is given. With the knowledge acquired and data collected, the risk and cost-benefit analysis is demonstrated in a case study that shows methods for prioritizing decisions from an economic perspective and provided important results for risk managing strategies.

38th European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition; 757-760, We demonstrate that partial shading of a single c-Si solar cell in a state-of-the-art high-power photovoltaic (PV) module with three bypass diodes can result in hot cells with critical module peak temperatures of 196 °C. The PV module under test features 144 bi-facial PERC+ half-cells of M6 silicon wafer format with a cell area of (166 x 83) mm2. The module’s measured maximum power output is 437 WP. We test three cells of the PV module in an extended IEC 61215-2 MQT09 hot-spot endurance test for 5 h in a steady-state sun simulator. All shaded cells reach steady-state temperatures above 175 °C. For the hottest cell we measure peak temperatures of 196 °C at the module surface. After the test the PV modules shows a discoloration of the white backsheet at the position of the shaded solar cells. This is likely to result in a module power loss or module failure due to encapsulation discolorations, desoldering of the cell interconnection, backsheet cracking of even glass breakage. Our results are essential for improving the long-term stability of new high-power modules with M10- or M12-sized cells and power outputs over 500 WP against partial shading. New high-power modules require hot cell mitigation techniques that go beyond three bypass diodes per module or heat-resistant module materials.

37th European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition; 1208-1220, In the IEA PVPS Task 13 subtask 1.3 we put together a compendium of new performance characterization methods for new Photovoltaic (PV) system designs as a reference. New methods are described and explained by laboratory tests up to case studies. While performance characterization is more than evaluating efficiency of a component or a system in certain operating points, the results account for multi-dimensional usage and benefits. The performance aspects of new PV designs start with the resource-efficient construction of solar cells and all other PV system components, continue with efficient power generation, and end with the resources (including the land or water surfaces on which systems are built) needed to operate a complex PV system and multiple uses to replace otherwise non-energy generating components. These assessments are intended to provide well-founded and comparable key figures in order to enable new PV system designs to move faster into new fields of application.

36th European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition; 795-800, Today, the PV module energy conversion efficiency is below the efficiency of the cells prior to module integration. Using optical ray tracing simulations, we show how to increase module efficiencies beyond the efficiency of the solar cells. To achieve this we follow two basic principles: First, we minimize optical losses of the module components by minimizing the absorption in the glass and the encapsulation as well as by introducing multilayer glass ARC coatings that reduce the surface reflection. Second, we exploit the internal reflection at the glass-air interface by using light guiding structures in the cell gaps and as cell connects. This improves the light trapping by reducing the cell front side reflection losses. In our specific example presented in this work, the optimization leads to a module efficiency of 20.9%, which is a 0.1%abs above that of the non-encapsulated cells with an efficiency of 20.8%.

35th European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition; 1049-1056, Results from the first international Round Robin on electroluminescence (EL) imaging of PV devices are presented. 17 Laboratories across Europe, Asia and the US measured EL images of ten commercially available modules and five single-cell modules. This work presents a novel automated camera calibration and image scaling routine. Its performance is quantified through comparing intensity deviation of corrected images and their cell average. While manual calibration includes additional measurement of lens distortion and flat field, the automated calibration extracts camera calibration parameters (here: lens distortion, and vignetting) exclusively from EL images. Although it is shown that the presented automated calibration outperforms the manual one, the method proposed in this work uses both manual and automated calibration. 501 images from 24 cameras are corrected. Intensity deviation of cell averages of every measured device decreased from 10.3 % (results submitted by contributing labs) to 2.8 % (proposed method), For three images the image correction produced insufficient results and vignetting correction failed for one camera, known of having a non-linear camera sensor. Surprisingly, largest image quality improvements are achieved by spatially precise image alignment of the same device and not by correcting for vignetting and lens distortion. This is due to overall small lens distortion and the circumstance that, although vignetting caused intensity reduction of more than 50%, PV devices are generally positioned in the image centre in which vignetting distortion is lowest.

35th European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition; 1440-1447, This paper presents an overview of the latest research and technical reporting activity of TASK13 participants, within the Subtask 3.3 (“Characterization of PV Module Condition in the Field”); and particularly, key findings of the new “Review on Infrared (IR) and Electroluminescence (EL) Imaging for PV Field Applications” TASK13 Report. Goal of the latter is to provide guidelines and recommendations for using IR and EL imaging, in order to identify and assess specific failure modes of PV modules and systems in field applications. As such, the paper provides first a discussion on the relevant state-of-the-art and particularly the new IEC standards, Technical Specifications (TS) and guidelines. It also describes current practices for IR and EL imaging of PV modules and systems, looking at environmental and device requirements and the interpretation of sample patterns with abnormalities. In addition, examples of typical inspection results are given, showing characteristic IR/thermal and EL signatures of different failure modes occurring in fielded PV modules and arrays.

35th European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition; 1842-1844, We present a new technique to alter the appearance of photovoltaic (PV) modules for building integration by laminating textiles and other customary materials onto the front of PV modules. This approach is highly customizable, since we can use virtually any thin UV-stable textile, whether it is a plain colored or a patterned textile. The short-circuit current density loss caused by the textile laminate is 6% to 11% for a whitish appearance. Textiles can be laminated to any standard PV module. Using commercially available materials and machines, this method is likely to be cost-efficient and readily available.

33rd European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition; 649-656, Since its first publication in 2015, the PERC+ cell concept has been rapidly adopted by several solar cell manufacturers worldwide. The fast industrial implementation is facilitated by the very similar process technology of bifacial PERC+ cells and main stream monofacial PERC cells. Conversion efficiencies of industrial PERC+ solar cells up to 21.6% with front side illumination and 17.3% with rear side illumination were reported. Meanwhile, four companies are offering commercial bifacial PERC+ modules with maximum rating power around 300 Wp when illuminated from the front side, only. These modules apply 60 PERC+ cells with 4 or 5 busbars, which are interconnected by conventional stringing and tabbing technology. First small scale outdoor installations verify an increase of the energy yield relative to monofacial PERC modules between 13% and 22%. Two large scale out door installations with 2 MWp and 20 MWp are under construction in Taiwan and China, respectively. We report for the first time in detail on a novel bifacial PERC+ prototype module by applying the Smart Wire Connection Technology. We interconnect 18 halved PERC+ solar cells by soldering 18 wires directly to the Ag front and Al rear fingers. The resulting prototype module exhibits independently confirmed front and rear side efficiencies of 19.8% and 16.4%, respectively. Additionally, Meyer Burger certified a full-size PERC+ SWCT module according to the IEC 61215 norm thereby demonstrating the long term reliability of this novel module technology.

32nd European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition; 407-412, We present bifacial fully ion implanted and screen-printed n-PERT cells, fabricated either by applying a single co-anneal process to cure the implant damage or by applying two separate anneals after boron/BF2 and phosphorous implant, respectively. In the first case of boron implant and co-anneal our best cells achieve an independently measured front (rear) side efficiency of 21.0 % (20.43 %) and for the boron implant and separate anneal the efficiency is 21.5 % (21.31 %). To the best of our knowledge these values are the highest efficiencies reported so far for fully ion implanted and screen-printed bifacial n-PERT cells. We furthermore show that light treatment of boron-implanted and co-annealed n-PERT cells increases the cell efficiency by 0.6 %abs. This diminish the efficiency gap to separately annealed cells. We measure a bifacial factor of 99.4 % that is the highest value reported so far for any high-efficiency Si cell. The high bifaciality enables an adapted module interconnection scheme called here Flip-Flop, which is based on a front-to-front and rear-to-rear interconnection of cells with alternating orientation (n+ or p+ side facing up). Based on the measured IV-characteristic of a cell with a bifacial factor of 97 % (“conservative scenario”) we demonstrate that the Flip-Flop interconnection scheme has the potential for a module efficiency improvement of 0.5 %abs on aperture area (as compared to the conventional “all cells emitter up” configuration) despite the 3 % current mismatch. We experimentally demonstrate a monofacial 16-cell Flip-Flop module that achieves an aperture area efficiency of 20.5 %.

32nd European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition; 1532-1538, We measure the short circuit current improvement of various commercial backsheets for highly efficient passivated emitter and rear solar cells (PERC) in photovoltaic (PV) modules. In our test modules an electrically contacted centre cell is surrounded by 8 cell parts of the same type to simulate the optical neighbourhood of a middle cell in the centre strings of a standard sized module. In order to reduce the impact of variations in the solar cell performance, we use the same glass/EVA/cell/EVA stack for all tests. The various backsheets are successively attached to the stack by a thin film of liquid paraffin. A measurement without backsheet and a “light trap” behind the module stack allows the calibration of the recovery probability of the cell gaps with nearly zero light recycling. This procedure allows a fast and precise measurement of the light recovery probability for the cell gaps covered by various backsheets. The light recovery probability k quantifies how much of the light reflected by the backsheet around the cell is converted into electrical current by the solar cells in the module. A black backsheet has a recovery probability close to 0%. Typical white scattering backsheets show a light recovery probability between 45% and 55% for 2 mm cell gaps. Higher recovery probabilities of about 75% are achieved by using highly reflective structured materials in the cell gaps. Using such structures in combination with half cells we process a world record standard size (1.5 m x 1 m) PERC PV module with an energy conversion efficiency of 20.2%.

32nd European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition; 1435-1443, We analyse the impact of various photovoltaic (PV) module failure modes in PV systems in the field to rank the impact of the failure types on the power generation. Therefore we designed a PV system failure survey based on a spread sheet programme. The survey is distributed to international PV experts who fill in the data. The failure data is collected since Oct. 2015 and the data collection is still in progress. The module failure types “cell cracks”, “potential induced degradation by shunting (PIDs)”, “defect bypass diodes” and “discolouring of pottant“ have the highest fraction in the database. The PIDs effect has a mean annual degradation rate of about 16%/a and affects about 3/5 of a system in moderate climate. This degradation rate is calculated for the PV modules PV systems which show degradation. Cell cracks show a mean degradation rate of around 5%/a for systems in the moderate climate zone and a higher degradation rate of about 8%/a in cold and snow climate. Cell cracks also often affect only some modules in a string showing a relevant power loss. Defect bypass diodes may show in some cases a very high impact on the module and system power degradation. They occur in the first 10 years of system operation. The wear out failure discolouring of pottant occurs during the whole system life but accumulates for very old systems. Its degradation rate is below 1%/a for all climatic zones.

29th European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition; 2276-2282, Before a PV module is integrated into a PV system it has to be handled and transported. This handling and transport is a critical stage of the PV-modules life. In order to identify critical handling steps we accompanied the installation of PV systems and compiled a list of typical and exceptional handling situations. From these observations we developed test to be performed in the laboratory. The tests are designed to account for the mechanical installation conditions as well as for the module temperature during the installation. As a result we find that the most critical handling step is the lay down of the PV module with sunny side up. During the lay down of the module one might let drop the module on one side from a low height. For one module type we found even for a 5 cm drop height more than 5 cracked cells after the drop. In contrast a vertical drop of a framed PV module results in no cell breakage at all. Additionally the risk of cell breakage rises for static loads by at least factor two with PV module temperature of -5°C compared to 25°C. Therefore one should avoid installing PV modules below the freezing point.

29th European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition; 2477-2483, We investigate the impact of the backsheet on cell interconnect ribbon and cell breakage in PV laminates. Standard sized laminates with and without a backsheet are mechanically loaded in a 4 line bending setup. We detect cracks in cells and cell interconnect ribbons by electroluminescence and measure cell crack widths and cell gap widths on photographs taken during the loading. Crack and gap widths increase with increasing bending. In the laminate without a backsheet the crack and gap widths increase by a factor of 1.7 to 3 more. The backsheet is under tensile stress which is partly transferred to the cells keeping the cell and gap widths smaller. Since the crack resistance increases with increasing crack width, insulated cell parts can occur at lower laminate loading in the laminate without a backsheet. A larger change in cell gap width causes more plastic deformation of the cell interconnect ribbon which leads to fatigue breakage after repeated load cycles. After the corrosion of the broken interface of the cell interconnect ribbon, the laminates show a reduction in module efficiency of 10.3 % (without backsheet) and of 2.2 % (with backsheet). This result emphasizes the importance of the mechanical properties of the backsheet.

28th European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition; 2832-2837, We investigate the composition of ethylene-vinyl acetate (EVA) PV-module encapsulation materials with different degrees of crosslinking and its influence on the module performance degradation. To do so, 0%, 50% and 90% cured samples consisting out of 5 EVA compounds are prepared and the volatile additives they contain are extracted and characterized. The stability towards oxidation of each material and each curing state is evaluated and is shown to be depending on the material composition, with lower stabilities found for materials with high amounts of curing agents such as peroxides and coactivators. In a second step, 0%, 50% and 90% cured laboratory scale laminates with 2 solar cells each are prepared with 4 different EVA materials. These modules are then tested under damp-heat conditions (85°C, 85% humidity) up to 2000 h or under UV irradiation at 60°C and their electrical performances are periodically measured. The degradation of the material is monitored by measuring its fluorescence intensity over time and the chemical composition of materials samples extracted during and after ageing is investigated. These experiments show that the 0% cured material is faster degraded than the 50% and 90% cured ones. Nevertheless, the decrease of the module performance over testing time does not differ from a curing state to the other.

28th European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition; 2960-2967, Before a PV module is integrated into a PV system it has to be handled and transported. This part of a PV module’s life causes some direct returns mostly due to glass breakage. But even when the glass is not broken the mechanical loads may cause cell cracks in some cases. The cell cracks typically have a very low direct impact on the PV module performance, but may reduce the durability of the PV module power. Therefore it is imperative to test the PV module for typical load situations occurring during the transport. There is already a standard to test transport units of PV modules. However for the development of PV modules this test is quite unsuitable, because the developer does not know the loads occurring at the module and one must test a whole stack of modules which are often not accessible at the development stage. Therefore we measured the accelerations of PV module corners during transport handling and transport for well packed horizontal PV module stacks. For German country roads we found the highest random vibrations during a transport with a truck company. The reduced power spectral density (PSD) of this random vibration is quite similar to the PSD spectrum suggested for testing of PV module packages in IEC62759-1. We use this PSD to test the PV modules on a shaker being attached at the corners of the module to simulate the situation in the stack. However the suggested test in that standard produces much more cell cracks than found in the transports where the PSD was generated from. Besides the PSD spectrum we also measured shocks during the transport. An analysis of different sine shocks shows that only shocks of a specific shock length of about 40 ms and about 20 ms and maximum amplitude higher than 20 m/s can affect the PV modules. We suggest a combined application of the shocks and PSD test procedure to reproduce realistic transport conditions.

27th European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition; 3033-3040, We use the fluorescence effect of the lamination material of PV modules to detect cracks in waferbased solar cells in a power plant. For this purpose the PV modules are irradiated by UV light and the fluorescence light is measured by a camera. The measurement is realized in the dark. This new application of the fluorescence method allows new insight to cracks of a huge amount of PV modules during service life without remounting or touching the PV modules. We found that the frequency distribution of so-called “cross cracks” are almost homogenous in the PV modules. These cracks are frequently induced by crumbs or needle-shaped production equipment and not introduced after production. We show that the measured distribution of “cross cracks” in the PV modules fits to the binominal frequency distribution, as it is expected for production induced cell failures. The measured crack frequency distribution for other crack types is compared to a finite element simulation of a simplified PV module. We find that the lateral crack distribution correlates with the simulated strain distribution induced by module vibrations. In total we found that 4.1% of the solar cells in the PV modules show at least one crack.

26th European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition; 3267-3269, We quantify the thermomechanical stresses in a crystalline photovoltaic module during thermal cycling between -40°C and 85°C with the help of a Finite-Element-Analysis of a 60 cell module. The quality of the simulation model is verified by a comparison to displacement experiments where the thermomechanical deformation of solar cells in a PV laminate is measured [1]. We find that the key feature in the simulation model is the viscoelastic material model for the EVA-encapsulant in order to obtain a good agreement with the experiments. The simulated stresses in the solar cells at -40°C are compressive and reach values of up to 75 MPa. In contrast, the back sheet is at -40°C under tensile stress of 45 MPa while the 4 mm thick glass experiences very low stresses. The EVA deforms with principal strains of up to 23% which proofs the EVA’s mechanical function as a compliant buffer layer. The change in the distance between two solar cells depends on their position in the module: close to the center the gap change is 120 μm (150°C to -40°C) while at the module edges the change in the cell distance is 170μm.

26th European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition; 3290-3294, Solar cell cracks in wafer based silicon solar modules are a well-known problem. In order to identify the origin of cracks and thus lay the foundation for the inhibition of crack formation, we provide for the first time a statistic crack distribution in photovoltaic (PV) modules. We evaluate electroluminescence images of PV modules tested at the ISFH with respect to cracks. The results of the static load test and the “as delivered” PV modules are compared. Additionally we perform a simulation of the strain distribution on a glass plate subjected to a uniform mechanical load and supported at the edges, which is used as a measure for the relative mechanical load on the individual cells. The measured crack distribution correlates well with the stress distribution calculated by the simulation. “As delivered” PV modules show an average of 6% of broken cells per PV module. The analysis of the spatial distribution and orientation of micro cracks in PV modules offers valuable insight into the causes of micro cracks if the PV module is subject to a uniform mechanical load. It lays the foundation for PV module developments that reduce the risk of cracks, as well as for statistical power loss assessment.

25th European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition / 5th World Conference on Photovoltaic Energy Conversion, 6-10 September 2010, Valencia, Spain; 4039-4043, The encapsulation of solar cells in polymeric sheets such as ethylene-vinyl acetate (EVA) is one crucial step in the fabrication of photovoltaic modules, as it commonly takes several minutes in a heated vacuum chamber. It is therefore a shared goal of PV module manufacturers to reduce the time needed to cure the encapsulant. However, such increased processing speed may result in poor EVA properties, such as a high content of residual aggressive reaction starters. As a consequence the module is highly prone to ageing, in particular delamination, yellowing and corrosion. We present a phenomenological mathematical description of the curing dynamics of a commercially available EVA sheet, which lays the foundation for a systematic search for optimized curing processes. This model is developed from isothermal rheometric measurements of the cure. We find that a model consisting of an initial incubation time followed by two competing reaction paths shows good agreement with the data. A validation is performed by extending the model to non-isothermal conditions and comparing it with experiments.

25th European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition / 5th World Conference on Photovoltaic Energy Conversion, 6-10 September 2010, Valencia, Spain; 3745-3752, Micro cracks in wafer based silicon solar cell modules are nowadays identified by a human observer with the electroluminescence (EL) method. However, the essential question of how the micro cracks affect the PV module performance has yet to be answered. We experimentally analyze the direct impact of micro cracks on the module power and the consequences after artificial aging. We show that the immediate effect of micro cracks on the module power is small, whereas the presence of micro cracks is potentially crucial for the performance of the module after artificial ageing. This confirms the necessity to develop the means of quantifying the risk of power loss in PV modules with cracked solar cells in their lifetime, in order to enable manufacturers to discard defective modules with high risk of failure while keeping modules with uncritical micro cracks. As a first step towards a risk estimation we develop an upper bound for the potential power loss of PV modules due to micro cracks in the solar cells. This is done by simulating the impact of inactive solar cell fragments on the power of a common PV module type and PV array. We show that the largest inactive cell area of a double string protected by a bypass diode is most relevant for the power loss of the PV module. A solar cell with micro cracks, which separate a part of less than 8% of the cell area, results in no power loss in a PV module or a PV module array for all practical cases. In between approximately 12% to 50% of inactive area of a single cell in the PV module the power loss increases nearly linearly from zero to the power of one double string.

25th European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition / 5th World Conference on Photovoltaic Energy Conversion, 6-10 September 2010, Valencia, Spain; 4366-4368, Polymers such as ethylene-vinyl acetate (EVA) encapsulants are known for their non-linear mechanical material behavior. We identify the time and temperature dependence of EVA with the help of dynamic mechanical analyses (DMA) and relaxation/creep experiments. Mechanical investigations of PV modules that address the issue of reliability and long-term stability need adequate models that incorporate these non-linear properties. A detailed description for a stepwise derivation of a viscoelastic material model that is based on relaxation and creep tests is presented. Besides the relevance for Finite-Element-Simulations (FEM) it is obvious from the experiments and the derived model that static snow load tests at room temperature cause a different amount of stress in the solar cells than tests at 0°C. At temperatures below 0°C the stiffness of EVA rises by 2 orders of magnitude.

24th European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference, 21-25 September 2009, Hamburg, Germany; 3226-3231, We present a non-destructive measurement technique to determine the operating voltage of individual solar cells in industrial manufactured photovoltaic (PV) module. This technique is based on electroluminescence imaging and makes use of two physical observations. First, the highest electroluminescence signal of each solar cell is proportional to its operating voltage and second, the sum of all operating voltages equals the externally applied PV module voltage. Thus, the measurement of the peak signals in the electroluminescence image for each cell provides the operating cell voltages. The reliability of this relation is verified by applying the method to a specially prepared PV module where we measure the individual operating cell voltages directly on exposed interconnectors. The cell voltages experimentally measured by EL are determined with a high accuracy of ± 0.6%. Moreover, the operating cell voltages determined from the electroluminescence image are used to calculate the PV module series resistance. We call this method “voltage imaging of the PV module” (VIM). Furthermore we present image pre-processing methods to reduce the impact of a number of artificial effects to our VIM approach.

23rd European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition, 1-5 September 2008, Valencia, Spain; 2709-2712, We present a prototype of a new module assembly machine, which addresses five aspects of current fabrication issues: (i) Increase of module production speed for (ii) cells with both contacts on the rear side, (iii) use of lead free solders, (iv) reduction of cell handling and (v) applicability to thin solar cells. We name the prototype ATLAS. The ATLAS system lays up back contact cells directly onto the module lamination foil and solders the interconnectors to the cells using a laser. Our newly developed prototype system handles each cell only once. The problem of accumulation of particles in the soldering station is avoided as each new lamination sheet serves as a clean substrate. The system is capable of assembling back-contacted cells. Cell and cross connection is done in one machine. Our ATLAS prototype system solders a complete connector bone between two solar cells in 5 s with one 200 W diode laser and one handling system. For a production system the speed may easily be increased to 2 s per cell by using three diode lasers. Compared to a standard stringer, the ATLAS system concept will double the productivity.

23rd European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition, 1-5 September 2008, Valencia, Spain; 2815-2817, We present a thermomechanical model of a laminated string for the optimization of interconnects for modules with back contact silicon solar cells. First we calculate the thermal stresses in a laminate of 9 noninterconnected cells that result from the cooling process from lamination temperature of 150°C down to −40°C. In a second step we add the interconnectors in a 2-dimensional geometry which is bidirectionally coupled to the original 3-dimensional geometry of the laminated cell string. Both simulations show the resulting stresses on the solar cells and all other module components. The first analysis shows the same stress distribution for every cell in the string. In the second simulation we find the cell stresses near the 3 soldered areas to depend significantly on the specific interconnector design. The model presented here consists of the equations from continuum mechanics and is solved by Finite Element Analysis. In this modeling approach we describe the mechanical material behavior by linear elasticity. The 2-dimensional plain-stress modeling of the interconnector allows fast and easy modifications of the interconnector’s design and helps to estimate the mechanical performance of the interconnector as a part of the 3 dimensional string. In a last step the electrical performance of the interconnector is simulated.