An analysis on the time-dependent formation of one-dimensional gray photovoltaic solitons under open-circuit conditions is presented.Quasi-steady state and steady state gray solitons are obtained from the time-dependent propagation equation.Results show that the solitons have intensity-independent widths in quasi-steady-state regime and their formation time is inversely proportional to the ratio of soliton peak intensity to dark irradiance.And,the study of propagation properties of open-circuit gray solitons indicates that they are relatively stable under perturbations at least less than 10%.