Efficiency simulations of thin film chalcogenide photovoltaic cells for different indoor lighting conditions

Abstract

Photovoltaic (PV) energy is an efficient natural energy source for outdoor applications. However, for indoor applications, the efficiency of PV cells is much lower. Typically, the light intensity under artificial lighting conditions is less than 10 W/m² as compared to 100-1000 W/m² under outdoor conditions. Moreover, the spectrum is different from the outdoor solar spectrum. In this context, the question arises whether thin film chalcogenide photovoltaic cells are suitable for indoor use.This paper contributes to answering that question by comparing the power output of different thin film chalcogenide solar cells with the classical crystalline silicon cell as reference. This comparison is made for typical artificial light sources, i.e. an LED lamp, a "warm" and a "cool" fluorescent tube and a common incandescent and halogen lamp, which are compared to the outdoor AM 1.5 spectrum as reference. All light sources (including the outdoor spectrum) are scaled to an illumination of 500 lux to obtain a correct comparison. The best artificial light source for all cell types is the incandescent lamp which improves the performance of the cell up to a factor 3 compared with the AM 1.5 spectrum. One remarkable result is that a CdTe cell outperforms a CIGS cell with more than 33 % in an indoor artificial lighting environment (except with an incandescent light source).

Perovskite indoor photovoltaics: opportunity and challenges

“…Meanwhile, the intensity of FL and LED are also three orders of magnitude lower than AM1.5. 22,23 Therefore, choosing a lightabsorbing material with a suitable bandgap to absorb the indoor light source effectively is necessary. According to the theoretical simulations, the absorber materials with a 1.8-1.95 eV bandgap are ideal for high-performance IPVs.…”

Bifacial amorphous Si quintuple‐junction solar cells for IoT devices with high open‐circuit voltage of 3.5V under low illuminance

“…So far, as solar cells for IoT devices, CIGS solar cells, GaAs solar cells, dye‐sensitized solar cells, organic solar cells, perovskite solar cells, etc. have been reported as well as Si solar cells, but in these materials, the basic principle is to obtain high voltage by wiring single‐junction solar cells internally.…”

A Proposal for Typical Artificial Light Sources for the Characterization of Indoor Photovoltaic Applications

“…The same results were qualitatively obtained: the cells perform better under incandescent/halogen illumination than AM 1.5, and worse under fluorescent illumination. Different authors discussed [6,43,44] and measured [45][46][47][48] the spectral mismatch between the absorption of solar cells and the spectrum of modern light sources.…”