TY - JOUR
T1 - Concentrator photovoltaic module architectures with capabilities for capture and conversion of full global solar radiation
AU - Lee, Kyu Tae
AU - Yao, Yuan
AU - He, Junwen
AU - Fisher, Brent
AU - Sheng, Xing
AU - Lumb, Matthew
AU - Xu, Lu
AU - Anderson, Mikayla A.
AU - Scheiman, David
AU - Han, Seungyong
AU - Kang, Yongseon
AU - Gumus, Abdurrahman
AU - Bahabry, Rabab R.
AU - Lee, Jung Woo
AU - Paik, Ungyu
AU - Bronstein, Noah D.
AU - Alivisatos, A. Paul
AU - Meitl, Matthew
AU - Burroughs, Scott
AU - Hussain, Muhammad Mustafa
AU - Lee, Jeong Chul
AU - Nuzzo, Ralph G.
AU - Rogers, John A
N1 - Funding Information:
This work is part of the "Light-Material Interactions in Energy Conversion" Energy Frontier Research Center (to K.-T.L., Y.Y., J.H., X.S., L.X., M.A.A., N.D.B., A.P.A., R.G.N., and J.A.R.) funded by the US Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences under Award DE-SC0001293. The work presented here was funded in part by the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, US Department of Energy, under Award DE-AR0000624. J.W.L. and U.P. are supported by the Global Research Laboratory Program (K20704000003TA050000310) through the National Research Foundation of Korea funded by the Ministry of Science. A.G., R.R.B., and M.M.H. are supported by the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology Technology Transfer Office under Award GEN/1/4014-01-01. X.S. acknowledges support from National Natural Science Foundation of China (Project 51602172).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2016, National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.
PY - 2016/12/20
Y1 - 2016/12/20
N2 - Emerging classes ofconcentrator photovoltaic (CPV) modules reach efficiencies that are far greater than those of even the highest performance flat-plate PV technologies, with architectures that have the potential to provide the lowest cost of energy in locations with high direct normal irradiance (DNI). A disadvantage is their inability to effectively use diffuse sunlight, thereby constraining widespread geographic deployment and limiting performance even under the most favorable DNI conditions. This study introduces a module design that integrates capabilities in flat-plate PV directly with the most sophisticated CPV technologies, for capture of both direct and diffuse sunlight, thereby achieving efficiency in PV conversion of the global solar radiation. Specific examples of this scheme exploit commodity silicon (Si) cells integrated with two different CPV module designs, where they capture light that is not efficiently directed by the concentrator optics onto large-scale arrays of miniature multijunction (MJ) solar cells that use advanced III-V semiconductor technologies. In this CPV+ scheme ("+" denotes the addition of diffuse collector), the Si and MJ cells operate independently on indirect and direct solar radiation, respectively. On-sun experimental studies of CPV+ modules at latitudes of 35.9886° N (Durham, NC), 40.1125° N (Bondville, IL), and 38.9072° N (Washington, DC) show improvements in absolute module efficiencies of between 1.02% and 8.45% over values obtained using otherwise similar CPV modules, depending on weather conditions. These concepts have the potential to expand the geographic reach and improve the cost-effectiveness of the highest efficiency forms of PV power generation.
AB - Emerging classes ofconcentrator photovoltaic (CPV) modules reach efficiencies that are far greater than those of even the highest performance flat-plate PV technologies, with architectures that have the potential to provide the lowest cost of energy in locations with high direct normal irradiance (DNI). A disadvantage is their inability to effectively use diffuse sunlight, thereby constraining widespread geographic deployment and limiting performance even under the most favorable DNI conditions. This study introduces a module design that integrates capabilities in flat-plate PV directly with the most sophisticated CPV technologies, for capture of both direct and diffuse sunlight, thereby achieving efficiency in PV conversion of the global solar radiation. Specific examples of this scheme exploit commodity silicon (Si) cells integrated with two different CPV module designs, where they capture light that is not efficiently directed by the concentrator optics onto large-scale arrays of miniature multijunction (MJ) solar cells that use advanced III-V semiconductor technologies. In this CPV+ scheme ("+" denotes the addition of diffuse collector), the Si and MJ cells operate independently on indirect and direct solar radiation, respectively. On-sun experimental studies of CPV+ modules at latitudes of 35.9886° N (Durham, NC), 40.1125° N (Bondville, IL), and 38.9072° N (Washington, DC) show improvements in absolute module efficiencies of between 1.02% and 8.45% over values obtained using otherwise similar CPV modules, depending on weather conditions. These concepts have the potential to expand the geographic reach and improve the cost-effectiveness of the highest efficiency forms of PV power generation.
KW - Concentration optics
KW - Diffuse light capture
KW - Multijunction solar cells
KW - Photovoltaics
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85006339944&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85006339944&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1073/pnas.1617391113
DO - 10.1073/pnas.1617391113
M3 - Article
C2 - 27930331
AN - SCOPUS:85006339944
VL - 113
SP - E8210-E8218
JO - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
JF - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
SN - 0027-8424
IS - 51
ER -