Introduction Concentrating photovoltaic (CPV) systems operate by using an optical assembly to concentrate light onto a photovoltaic (PV) cell. In other words, they entrain a large area of solar energy onto a small cell, which operates at an irradiation level many times greater than that of direct, unconcentrated sunlight.
A solar concentrator is a device designed to focus and concentrate solar radiation, and its application can be both in the generation of solar thermal energy and in the generation of solar photovoltaic energy. Its operation is based on the use of reflective surfaces, typically formed by a series of mirrors arranged in an aligned arrangement.
Concentrator photovoltaics (CPV) (also known as concentrating photovoltaics or concentration photovoltaics) is a photovoltaic technology that generates electricity from sunlight. Unlike conventional photovoltaic systems, it uses lenses or curved mirrors to focus sunlight onto small, highly efficient, multi-junction (MJ) solar cells.
Concentrated photovoltaic is an approach for generating reasonable amount of electricity with limited solar cell areas. More sunlight radiation will be intercepted by the solar modules hence less coverage of PV rooftop is needed, which is beneficial for homogeneous indoor illumination and uniform growth of plants.
The GaAs-based compound semiconductor has been adopted for concentrated photovoltaic (CPV) solar cells (SCs) [4,5]. ... ... Solar concentrators also generate heat on the PV cell. The increasing temperature causes the efficiency of the PV cell to reduce . ...
The resulting PV output with the proposed concentrator was 1.33 and 1.74 times higher for solar irradiances of 69 and 280 W/m 2, respectively, compared to an identical non-concentrating PV module. The authors used phase change material (PCM) to control the PV temperature and improve the PV conversion efficiency.